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AUTHOR: 


CARDUCCI, 


TITLE: 

POE 

CAR 

PLACE: 


DA  TE : 

1892 


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Restrictions  on  Use: 


IH»«|W»«B'""""IW^^""'^'^"^ 


il#l,,|ll,,  t.ill|pi|l.4|lf 


Poems.  Selections.  EngUsh^ 

Carducci,  Giosue,  18S5-1907. 
Poems  of  Giosue  Carducci;  tr.  with  two  introductory 

essays :  i.  Giosue  Carducci  and  the  HeUenic  reaction  in 
Italy.  II.  Carducci  and  the  classic  reahsm,  by  Frank 
Sewall  ...    New-York,  Dodd,  Mead  &  company,  1892. 

V  p.,.  1  1.,  135  p.    19i"". 

"Giosue  Carducci  and  the  Hellenic  reaction  in  Italy  ...  appeared  first  in 
Harper's  magazine  for  July,  1890."— Pref. 

D855C17   Copy  in  Faterno.  1302.. 


i.^ewall,  Frank,  1837-1915.  tr. 

Library  of  Congress         \)     PQ4685.Z3    1892 
Copyright    1892:  41372 


16-S424 


FILM     SIZE:__3r 


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l«i      I  HI.    CITY    or    ^lEW    VOUK 


POEMS 


OF 


GIOSUE  CARDUCCI 


TRANSLATED 
WITH  TWO  INTRODUCTORY  ESSAYS 

I  GIOSUE  CARDUCCI  AND  THE  HELLENIC 
REACTION  IN  ITALY 

II  CARDUCCI  AND  THE  CLASSIC  REALISM 


BY 

FRANK  SEWALL 


"Le  secret  de  I'artgrec  riside  la,  dnns  cette 
finesse  A  dlgag^er  la  Itgfte  unique  't  nfces- 
snire  qui  fvoque  la  vie  et  en  diterntine  dit 
coup  comme  le  type  Iternel  " 

PAUL   BOURGET 


NEW-YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  &  COMPANY 
1892 


/ 


?, 


ca>*-^" 


7} 


SI 

Q 

■1 


CONTENTS 


Copyright,  1892,  by 
DoDD,  MiAD  &  Company 


TNI  ra  VINNI  PXCKft* 


PAGE 

Preface ^*^ 

Essays 

I.  GiosuE  Carducci  and  the  Hellenic  Reac- 

tion IN  Italy i 

II.  Carducci  and  the  Classic  Realism  ...  29 

Translations 

I.  Roma 57 

II.  Hymn  to  Satan 5^ 

III.  Homer °^ 

IV.  Virgil "7 

V.   Invocation  to  the  Lyre 08 

v..  Sun  and  Love 7° 

VII.  To  Aurora 7* 

iii 


i„  Contents 

•*  PACE 

VIII.    RUIT    HORA 

IX.  The  Ox ^^ 

X.  To  Phcebus  Apollo 7 

XI.  Hymn  to  the  Redeemer ^^ 

XII.  Outside  the  Certosa      ^ 

XIII.  Dante  —  Sonnet 5 

XIV.  In  a  Gothic  Church 

,  .    .      88 

XV.  Innanzi,  innanzi! 

.    .      8q 

XVI.  Sermione 

XVII.  To  A  Horse ^^ 

XVIII.  A  Dream  in  Summer 94 

XIX.  On  A  Saint  Peter's  Eve 97 

XX.  The  Mother 99 

XXI.    "  PaSSA  la  NAVE  MIA,  SOLA,  TRA  IL  PIANTO  "         lOl 

XXII.  Carnival. 

Voice  moM  the  Palace 

Voice  raoM  THE  Hovel >03 

Voice  from  the  BanoFIT '°5 

Voice  ihom  the   Garret *° 

Voice  from  Beneath '°7 

XXIII.  Sonnet  to  Petrarch 9 

XXIV.  Sonnet  to  Goldoni 

XXV.  Sonnet  to  Alfieri 

XXV..  Sonnet  TO  Mont, '" 


Contents  ^ 

PAGE 

xxvii.  Sonnet  to  Niccolini *'3 

xxviii.  In  Santa  Croce * 

XXIX.  Voice  of  the  Priests *^5 

xxx.  Voice  of  God 

XXXI.  On  my  Daughter's  Marriage  ....  H? 

XXXII.  At  the  Table  of  a  Friend 1^9 

120 

xxxiii.  Dante 

XXXIV.  On  the  Sixth  Centenary  of  Dante    .     126 

127 
XXXV.   Beatrice ' 

XXXVI.    "A    (^ESTI    DI    prima    10   LA   VIDI.      UsCIa"     1 30 
XXXVII.     "NON    SON    QUELL*    lO    CHE     GIA     d'aMICHE 

cene" *5» 

xxxviii.  The  Ancient  Tuscan  Poetry     ....  132 

xxxix.  Old  Figurines ^33 

XL.  Madrigal 34 

XLi.  Snowed  Under ^35 


•■  -■  -—  '■•' 


PREFACE 


^N  endeavouring  to  introduce  Carducci  to  English  readers 
'  through  the  following  essays  and  translations,  1  would 
— __,  not  be   understood  as  being  moved  to  do  so  alone 
bTmy  high  estimate  of  the  literary  merit  of  his  poems,  nor 
by  a  desire  to  advocate  any  peculiar  religious  or  social  prin- 
ciples which  they  may  embody.    It  is  rather  because  these 
poems  seem  to  me  to  afford  an  unusually  interesting  example 
of  the  survival  of  ancient  religious  motives  beneath  the  litera- 
ture of  a  people  old  enough  to  have  passed  through  a  succes- 
sion of  religions  ;    and  also  because  they  present  a  form  of 
realistic  literary  art  which,  at  this  time,  when   realism  is 
being  so  perverted  and  abused,  is  eminently  refreshing,  and 
sure  to  impart  a  healthy  impetus  to  the  literature  of  any 
people      For  these  reasons  I  have  thought  that,  even  under 
the  garb  of  very  inadequate  translations,  they  would  consti- 
tute a  not  unwelcome  contribution  to  contemporary  literary 

'^"'^Im  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  Harper  &  Brothers  for  the 
privilege  of  including  here,  in  an  amplified  form,  the  essay 
on  Giosue  Carducci  and  the  Hellenic  Rea^ion  in  Italy,  which 
appeared  first  in  Harper's  Magazine  for  July,  1890. 


F.  S. 


Washington,  D.  C,  June,  1892. 


GIOSUE  CARDUCCl 


AND  THE  HELLENIC   REACTION    IN    ITALY 

>HE  passing  of  a  religion  is  at  once  the  most  interesting 
'  and  the  most  tragic  theme  that  can  engage  the  his- 
^ms^.  torian.  Such  a  record  lays  bare  what  lies  mmos  ly 
auS^heart  of  a  people,  and  has.  consciously  or  unconsc.ously, 
shaped  their  outward  life  ^^ 

The  literature  of  a  time  reveais,  dui  idic.j^ 
anlly  es     he  changes  that  go  on  in  the  popular  «l>g.ous 
beUefr    It  is  only  in  a  later  age,  when  the  rel.g.on  itself  has 
Sme  dLcatel,  i.s  creeds  and  its  forms  '''■ed  an^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
for  better  preservation,  that  this  analysis  .s  made  of  ts  passing 
11,  J  these  again  made  the  subject  of  ^^^"-J-^l 
Few  an.ong  the  existing  nations  that  possess  a  ''terature 
hav   a  history  which  dates  back  far  enough  to  embrace  the  e 
g  "t  fundam'enta.  changes,  such  as  that  from  pagan.sm  ^ 
Christianity,  and  also  a  literature  that  ---^  -"^J^^^ 
chanees       The   Hebrew  race  possess  indeed  the  r  ancient 
£  Xes,  and  with  them  retain  their  ancient  religious  ideas. 
?h?Rus";ns  and  Scandinavians  deposed  their  pagan  deities 
lo  Jive  place  to  the  White  Christ  within  comparatively  recen 
times,  but  they  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  possessed  a  l.tera- 

I 


Giosid  Carducci 


ture  in  the  pre-Christian  period.  Our  own  saga  of  BeowuH 
is  indeed  a  religious  war-chant  uttering  the  savage  emotions 
of  our  Teutonic  ancestors,  but  not  a  work  of  literary  art 
calmly  reflecting  the  universal  life  of  the  people. 

It  is  only  to  the  Latin  nations  of  Europe,  sprung  from 
Hellenic  stock  and  having  a  continuous  literary  history  cov- 
ering a  period  of  from  two  to  three  thousand  years,  that  we 
may  .look  for  the  example  of  a  people  undergoing  these 
radical  religious  changes  and  preserving  meanwhile  a  living 
record  of  them  in  a  contemporaneous  literature.  Such  a 
nation  we  find  in  Italy. 

So  thorough  is  the  reaction  exhibited  during  the  last  half 
of  the  present  century  in  that  country  against  the  dogma  and 
the  authority  of  the  Church  of  Rome  that  we  are  led  to  in- 
quire whether,  not  the  church  alone,  as  Mr.  Symonds  says,* 
but  Christianity  itself  has  ever  "imposed  on  the  Italian  char- 
acter" to  such  an  extent  as  to  obliterate  wholly  the  underlying 
Latin  or  Hellenic  elements,  or  prevent  these  from  springing 
again  into  a  predominating  influence  when  the  foreign  yoke 

is  once  removed. 

To  speak  of  Christianity  coming  and  going  as  a  mere  pass- 
ing episode  in  the  life  of  a  nation,  and  taking  no  deep  hold 
on  the  national  character,  is  somewhat  shocking  to  the  re- 
ligious ideas  which  prevail  among  Christians,  but  not  more 
so  than  would  have  been  to  a  Roman  of  the  time  of  the 
Oesars  the  suggestion  that  the  Roman  Empire  might  itself 
one  day  pass  away,  a  transient  phase  only  in  the  life  of  a 

♦  "  Rome  itself  had  never  gathered  the  Italian  cities  into  what  we  call  a 
nauon :  and  when  Rome,  the  world's  head,  fell,  the  municipalities  of  Italy  re- 
mained, and  the  Italian  people  sprang  to  life  again  by  contact  with  their 
irrecoverable  past.  Then,  though  the  church  swayed  Europe  from  Italian  soil, 
she  had  nowhere  less  devoted  subjects  than  in  Italy.  Proud  as  the  Italians 
had  been  of  the  empire,  proud  as  they  now  were  of  Ae  church,  st.ll  neither  the 
Roman  Empire  nor  the  Roman  Church  imposed  on  the  Italian  character.  - 
Symands's  "  Renaissance  in  Italy."    Literature.    11.,  p.  524- 


Giosu^  Carducci  ^ 

people  whose  history  was  to  extend  in  unbroken  Une  over  a 
period  of  twenty-five  hundred  ye»-  ^.^^ 

In  the  work  ust  referred  to  M^/'V™"  ,     ^^ether 

at  another  idea  of  profound  '•g"'«f"'- """,;'  character 
there  is  not  an  underlying  bas.s  o    P  '-";    ^^^  '  ,„ 

stiU  extant  in  t*"^.  ^f  ^  ^  '°      °^  of 

which  may  be  attributed  the  v^'^'X  '"  »"      studii  LetUrari 

r:  r  ''::s^^^^^^  ':^i:L..^r...  one 

(Bologna,  .880),  Caduccin  ^^^^.^^  iHex^t^:,. 

in  hU  def.nU.on  of  '^^  »*;-     7,.,,,^,  ,,,  the  nationals 

\   "t^r'  TheXt^r  e  clesiastical  element  is  superimposed^ 
_character,.    The  hrst  ^-— --r-;;;^^^^  never  was  native  to_ 
by_  the  Roman  '---^y.  bu^^,""^  \^,  ,„^,.    The  first  is 
the  ItaUanjEeople.    '»  ^^^.^  ^"X" '"        ^  to  nature  and  to 
OFiiSTl,  mystic,  and  v.oe"tly  opposed  to  ^^^ 

human  instincts  arid  at^^^ 

ascetic  type  of  '^^''^'''''^^-^xrr^tttmd^S^S^I^^SM^^^"  ^^'^ 

ip^':::tTJ/ztiZs:iL  sou,,  and  so  u- 

desiTJToT  the  body  and  tn  ^  ^^^^hip.     Us 

^"""  nSt^levt Se  sS^^^^^  to  the  church  those 
aim  is  to  bring  into  servicca  J  rharacter  which  could 
elements  of  human  n^-  or  of  — '^^f ,  ,,p,esentea 

r'thl  Zc^  0      etcSa  tical  poli^.  U  becomes  distinct.x 

^  f  t  nw^.  the  eclectic  traditions  of  the  ancient  empire, 

JRonun,  following  the  ede  ^  ^^^.^^^^  ^  „,^,^ 

^Seon'    t  tiJonnedU^^ 

in  the  fanineon.        via — ^ CIT^  thp  dermanic  into  a 

Latin  races^d  the  "=>'""' P^^an^mo    he  Germa 

-^jnglST^^ich,  if  not  Christianity,  could  be  madet  ., 

jthe  Christian  church  ._^  ^^^  (-^^i^^i^n 

■  '"''':ZlZ\TL^^lt^^^^''"^"  o.  semi-pagan 
f  ■"!'  dTd  feuda  ism  an  the  German  Empire  bringjnjt^t 
ofThW^Wagain,  wasliT^i^n^rS^ilSFiilM^the 


Giosu^  Carducci 


Italian  character.  It  came  with  the  French  and  German  in- 
vaders ;  it  played  no  part  in  the  actions  of  the  Italians  on 
their  own  soil.  *' There  never  was  in  Italy,*'  says  Carducci, 
**  a  truejihiyalry,  and  therefore  there  never  was  a  chivalrous 
poetry."  With  the  departure  of  a  central  imperial  power  the 
chivalrous  tendency  disappeared.  There  remained  the  third 
element,  that  of  nationality,  the  race  instinct,  resting  on  the 
old  Romaii,  and  even  older  Latin,  Italic,  Etruscan,  Hellenic 
attachments  in  the  heart  of  the  people.  Witness  during  all 
the  Middle  Ages,  even  when  the  power  of  the  church  and  the 
influence  of  the  empire  were  strongest,  the  reverence  every- 
where shown  by  the  Italian  people  for  classical  names  and 
traditions.  Arnold  of  Brescia,  Nicola  di  Rienzi,  spoke  to  a 
sentirnent  deeper  and  stronger  in  the  hearts  of  their  hearers 
than  any  that  either  pope  or  emperor  could  inspire.  The 
story  is  told  of  a  schoolmaster  of  the  eleventh  century,  Vil- 
gardo  of  Ravenna,  who  saw  visions  of  Virgil,  Horace,  and 
Juvenal,  and  rejoiced  in  their  commendation  of  his  etforts  to 
preserve  the  ancient  literature  of  the  people.  The  national 
principle  also  exists  in  two  forms,  the  Roman  and  the  Italian 
— the  aulic  or  learned,  and  the  popular.  Besides  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  great  days  of  the  republic  and  of  the  Caesars, 
besides  the  inheritance  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics,  there 
are  also  the  native  instincts  of  the  people  themselves,  which, 
"especiaiiyTn  religion  and  in  art,  must  play  an  InTportant  part. 
Arnold  of  Brescia  cried  out,  ** Neither  pope  nor  emperor!'* 
It  was  then  the  people,  as  the  third  estate,  made  their  voxes 
heard  — "  Ci  sono  ancb*  io!"  (Here  am  I  too  !). 

After  the  elapse  of  three  hundred  years  from  the  downfjll 
of  the  free  Italian  municipalities  and  the  enslavement  of  the 
peninsula  under  Austrio-Spanish  rule,  we  have  witnessed 
again  the  achievement  by  Italians  of  national  independence 
and  national  unity.  The  effect  of  this  political  change  on 
the  free  manifestations  of  the  Italian  character  would  seem  to 


Giosue  Carducci  5 

offer  another  corroboration  "f  Carducci's  assertion  that '■  lUly 
is  born  and  dies  with  the  setting  and  the  ns.ng  of  the  star 
of  the  pope  and  the  emperor."     (Studu  Utterar,,V^  44-) 
Not  only  with  the  withdrawal  of  the  Austrian  and  French 
Tn    ^eir  has  the  pope's  temporal  power  come   o  an  en 
but  in  a  large  measure  the  religious  emancipation  of  Italy 
frlL  foreign  influences  of  Christianity  in  eveiy  way    as 
been  accomplished.     The  expulsion  of  the  J^  "''^  ^"*  Je 
secularisation  of  the  schools  and  of  the  ---'-  P-Pf  ^ 
were  the  means  of  a  more  real  emancipation  of  op  n  on   ot 
Sa^d  of  native  impulse,  which,  free  from  restrain  e^her 
ecclesiastical  or  political,  could  now  resume  't^^"^';"';f  ^J 
lift  from  the  overgrowth  of  centuries  the  ancient  shrines  of 
popular  worship,  and  invoke  again  the  ancient  gods^ 

The  pope  remains,  indeed,  andtheChurch  of  Rome  fills? 
lareT  space  in  the!urfeceWeoLthe.ESfiBlS-of  "^'XL  *""  *" 

gas  L  its  ,or,;^^r^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
festivals  and  picturesque  rites,  and  especially  in  its  sacr  ficial 
Ind  vicarious  theory  of  worship,  the.c.|mrch  has  assimilated 
toluelf  the  mostJmEortant  feature  of  the  ancient  pagan  rf- 
-j;^— -nSST^mTbeTegarded  as  a  thing  of  the  people.    Bu 
-Surnderlying  antagonism  between  the  ancient  nationa^ 
instinclTbotU  religious  and  civil,  and  tha    hab.toChr.s- 
li^^which  has  been  imposed  upon  it,  f"^;  '^     ^  « 

pression  in  the  strong  lines  of  a  ^°""'' "^  ^''^'*"'^' *' P"!^ 
lishedin  ,87..  in  the  collection  entitled  D..m-a/-.  Even 
(i^gh  the  burdensome  guise  of  a  metrical  tran^ation  some- 
thing of  the  splendid  fire  of  the  original  can  hardly  fail  to 

•" T^'mfvit  £  the  revival  of  Italian  literature  may  be 
said  to  have  begun  with  Alfieri,  at  the  close  of  the  last  and 
The  beginning  of  the  present  century.  It  was  contemporaj 
with  the  breaking  up  of  the  political  institutions  of  the  past 
in  Europe,  the  dissolution  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  the 


Giosue  Carducci 


brief  existence  of  the  Italian  Republic,  the  revival  for  a  short 
joyous  moment  of  the  hope  of  a  restored  Italian  indepen- 
dence. Again  a  thrill  of  patriotic  ardour  stirs  the  measures 
of  the  languid  Italian  verse.  Alfieri  writes  odes  on  America 
Liberata,  celebrating  as  the  heroes  of  the  new  age  of  liberty 
Franklin,  Lafayette,  and  Washington.  Still  more  significant 
of  the  new  life  imparted  to  literature  at  this  time  is  the  sober 
dignity  and  strength  of  Alfieri's  sonnets,  and  the  manly  pas- 
sion that  speaks  in  his  dramas  and  marks  him  as  the  founder 
of  Italian  tragedy. 

But  the  promise  of  those  days  was  illusory.  With  the 
downfall  of  Napoleon  and  the  return  of  the  Austrian  rule, 
the  hope  of  the  Italian  nationality  again  died  out.  Alfieri 
was  succeeded  by  Vincenzo  Monti  and  his  fellow-classicists, 
who  sought  to  console  a  people  deprived  of  future  hope  with 
the  contemplation  of  the  remote  past.  This  school  restored 
rather  than  revived  the  ancient  classics.  They  gave  Italians 
admirable  translations  of  Homer  and  Virgil,  and  turned  their 
own  poetic  writing  into  the  classical  form.  But  they  failed 
to  make  these  dead  forms  live.  These  remained  in  all  their 
beauty  like  speechless  marble  exhumed  and  set  up  in  the 
light  and  stared  at.  If  they  spoke  at  all,  as  they  did  in  the 
verses  of  Ugo  Foscolo  and  Leopardi,  it  was  not  to  utter  the 
joyous  emotions,  the  godlike  freedom  and  delight  of  living 
which  belonged  to  the  world's  youthful  time;  it  was  rather 
to  give  voice  to  an  all-pervading  despair  and  brooding  melan- 
choly, born,  it  is  true,  of  repeated  disappointments  and  of  a 
very  real  sense  of  the  vanity  of  life  and  the  emptiness  of 
great  aspirations,  whether  of  the  individual  or  of  society. 
This  melancholy,  itself  repugnant  to  the  primitive  Italian 
natureTopenid  the  way  for  the  still  more  foreign  influence 
^o?lTre  romanticists,  which  tended  to  the  study  and  love  of 
nature  from  the  subjective  or  emotional  side,  and  to  a  more 
or  less  morbid  dwelling  upon  the  passions  and  the  interior 


Giosw  Carducci  7 

life.    With  a  religion  whose  life-sap  of  a  genuine  faith  had 
been  drained  away  for  ages,  and  a  patriotism  enervated  and 
poisoned  by  subserviency  to  foreign  -^^^^J^^"';^^^^^^^^ 
foreign  favour,  naught  seemed  to  remain  ^-^  '^l'^''^^'^' 
who  wished  to  do  something  else  than  moan,  but  to  compose 
dictionaries  and  cyclopedias,  to  prepare  editions  of  the  ^^^^^^ 
teenth-century  classics,  with  elaborate  critica    annotations 
and  so  to  keep  the  people  mindful  of  the  fact  t^at  there  w 
once  an  Italian  literature,  even  if  they  were  to  despa  r  of 
having  another.     The  decay  of  religious  faith  made  the  ex- 
ternal  forms  of  papal  Christianity  seem  all  the  more  a  crue 
rmockery  to  the  minds  that  began  now  to  turn  their  g^e 
inwardf  and  to  feel  what  Taine  so  truly  describes  a^^tl^ 
PuTitan  melancholy,  the  subjective  sadness  whidi  belong^ 
peculiarly  to  the  Teutonic  race.     The  whole  literature  of  the 
romantic  school,  whether  in  Italy  or  throughout  Europe  be- 

-tiSed  a  certain  morbidness  of  feeling  which, says  Car^  , 

Ci^gs  to  all  periods  of  transition,  and  appears  alike  in  Tor- 
S^Tasso,  under  the  Catholic  reaction  of  the  sixteenUi 
century,  and  in  Chateaubriand,  Byron,  and  Leopardi,  m  the 
^rarc^ical  restoration  of  the  nineteenth.    The    espair  whidi 
furnishes  a  perpetual  undertone  to  the  writing  of  this  school 
s  that  which  is  born  of  the  effort  to  keep  a  semblance  of 
fe  in  dead  forms  of  the  past,  while  yet  the  really  Uvmg 
motives  of  the  present  have  found  neither  the  courage  nor 
♦he  fittinc  forms  for  their  expression. 

n  many  respects  the  present  revival  of  Italian  literature  .s 
in  many  r    v  f"  constituted  the  Renais- 

a  reawakening  of  the  same  spirii  inai  cu  j;„„_,,,„j 

sance  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteen  centunes   =>"<»  disappeared 
r    "nder  the  subsequent  influences  of  the  Catho he  reaction 
^    Thr      hundred  years  of  papal  supremacy  and  foreign  c.v.c 
!  Vule  have,  however,  tempered  the  national  ^P'"''  ^eakenj 
the  manhood  of  the  people,  and  developed  a  hab.t  of  ch.l^ 
ike  subserviency  and   effeminate  dependence.    Wh.le  re- 


g  Giosue  Carducci 

straining  the  sensuous  tendency  of  pagan  religion  and  pagan 
art  within  the  channels  of  the  church  ritual,  Rome  has  not 
meanwhile  rendered  the  Italian  people  more,  but,  if  anything, 
less  spiritual  and  less  susceptible  of  spiritual  teaching  than 
they  were  in  the  days  of  Dante  or  even  of  Savonarola.     The 
new  Italian  renaissance,  if  we  may  so  name  the  movement 
witnessed  by  the  present  century  for  the  re-€stablishment  of 
national  unity  and  the  building  up  of  a  new  Italian  literature, 
lacks  the  youthful  zeal,  the  fiery  ardour  which  characterised 
the  age  of  the  Medici.    The  glow  is  rather  that  of  an  Indian 
summer  than  that  of  May.     The  purpose,  the  zeal,  whatever 
shall  be  its  final  aim,  will  be  the  result  of  reflection  and  not 
of  youthful   impulse.     The   creature   to   be  awakened  and 
stirred  to  new  life  is  more  than  a  mere  animal;  it  is  a  man, 
whose  thinking  powers  are  to  be  addressed,  as  well  as  his 
sensuous  instincts  and  amatory  passion.     Such  a  revival  is 
slow  to  be  set  in  motion.     When  once  fairly  begun,  pro- 
vided it  have  any  really  vital  principle  at  bottom,  it  has 
much  greater  promise  of  permanence  than  any  in  the  past 
history  of  the  Italian  people.     A  true  renascence  of  a  nation 
will  imply  a  reform  or  renewal  of  not  one  phase  alone  of  the 
nation^s  life,  but  of  all;  not  only  a  new  political  life  and  a 
new  poetry,  but  a  new  art,  a  new  science,  and,  above  all,  a 
new  religious  faith^  The  steps  to  this  renewal  are  necessarily 

at  the  beginning  oftenfiL  oOhe  nature  of  negation  oT  the oljL, 

{fiSn  of  assertion  of  the  n^w.  The  destroyer  and  the  clearer- 
away  of  the  debris  go  before  the  builder.  It  will  not  be 
strange,  therefore,  if  the  present  aspect  of  the  new  national 
life  of  Italy  should  offer  us  a  number  of  conspicuous  negations 
rather  than  any  positive  new  conceptions;  that  the  people's 
favorite  scientist,  Mantegazza,— the  ultra-materialist,— should 
be  the  nation's  chosen  spokesman  to  utter  in  the  face  of  the 
Vatican  its  denial  of  the  supernatural;  and  that  arducci,the 
nation's  foremost  and  favourite  poet,  sh^ftukLsing  the  retuoiof^ 


\ ' 


Giosue  Carducci  9 

the  ancient  worship  of  nature,  of  beauty,  and  of  sensuous  love, 
and  seelTto  drown  the  solemn  notes  of  the  Quistian  ritual  in 
a  universal  jubilant  hymn  to  Bacchus.  These  are  the  contra- 
dictions exhibited  in  all  great  transitions.  They  will  not  mis- 
lead if  the  destroyer  be  not  confounded  with  the  builder  who 
is  to  follow,  and  the  temporary  ebullition  of  pent-up  passion 
be  not  mistaken  for  the  after-thought  of  a  reflecting,  sobered 
mind.   No  one  has  recognized  this  more  truly  than  Carducci : 

rOr  destruggiam.    Dei  secoli 
Lo  strato  h  sul  pensiero : 
O  pochi  e  forti,  all*  opera, 
Chfe  nei  profundi  e  11  vero. 


L 


Now  we  destroy.    Of  the  ages 
The  highway  is  built  upon  thinking. 
O  few  and  strong,  to  the  work ! 
For  truth  's  at  the  bottom. 


It  was  in  the  year  1859,  when  once  more  the  cry  for 
Italian  independence  and  Italian  unity  was  raised,  that  the 
newly  awakened  nation  found  its  laureate  poet  in  the  youth- 
ful writer  of  a  battle  hymn  entitled  **  Alia  Croce  Bianca  di 
Savoia"  — The  White  Cross  of  Savoy.  Set  to  music,  it 
became  very  popular  with  the  army  of  the  revolutionists,  and 
the  title  is  said  to  have  led  to  the  adoption  of  the  present 
national  emblem  for  the  Italian  flag.  As  a  poem  it  is  not 
remarkable,  unless  it  be  for  the  very  conventional  commin- 
gling of  devout,  loyal,  and  valorous  expressions,  like  the  fol- 
lowing, in  the  closing  stanza: 

Dio  ti  salvi,  o  cara  fnsegna, 

Nostro  amore  e  nostra  gioja, 

Bianca  Croce  di  Savoja, 
Dio  ti  salvi,  e  salvi  il  Re  ! 

But  six  years  later,  in  1865,  there  appeared  at  Pistoja  a  poem 
over  the  signature  Enotrio  Romano,  and  dated  the  **year 


j^  Giosue  Carducci 

MMDCXVIII  from  the  Foundation  of  Rome,"  which  revealed 
in  a  far  more  signiHcant  manner  in  what  sense  its  author, 
Giosui  Carducci,  then  in  his  thirtieth  year,  was  to  become 
truly  the  nation's  poet,  in  giving  utterance  agam  to  those 
deejy  hidden  and  long-hushed  ideas  ''"^  jmot.ons  wh^h 
belonged  anciently  to  the  people,  and  wh.ch  no  exot^  mflu-    .. 
ence  had  been  able  entirely  to   quench.     Th.^joem  was 
called  a  "Ujonn  to  Satan."  The.shock2t^ve  to  the  popular 
•Is^^r^ielTTsl^f^ent  not  only  from  the  vK.k„ce  and 
iS»ti^  with  which  it  was  handled  in  the  cler,a  land 
the^servative  journals,  one  of  which  ca  led  .t  an  ".nt^- 

lectual  orgy,"  l^lUrorp  the  ""'"'''^^3P!?"f ';°"^' ^f  ° 
less  apologetic,   which  the  poet  and  h.sfnends   found    ,t 
necessLy  I  publish.    One  of  these,  which  appeared  over  the 
'  ^gnature  Enotriof  lo  in   the  Italian  Mten^un.  of  January 
.886,  has  been  approvingly  quoted  by  Carducc,  m  h^notes 
to  the  Decennali.    We  may  therefore  regard  .t  as  embodying 
ideas  which  are,  at  least,  not  contrary  to  what  the  author  of 
the  poem  intended.    From  this  commentary  it  appears  that 
^e  Z  to  look  here  "  not  for  the  poetry  of  the  samts  but  of 
the  sinners,-of  those  sinners,  that  is,  who  do  not  steal  away 
into  the  deserts  to  hide  their  own  virtues    so  that  others 
shall  not  enjoy  them,  who  are  not  ashamed  of  h"manje- 
lights  and  human  comforts,  and  who  refuse  none  of  the  paths 
that  lead  to   these.     Not  laudes  or  spiritual  hymns,  but  a 
r     n,aterial  hymn  is  what  we  shall  here  find.    "  Enot"')  »'nP. 
says  his  admiring  apologist,  "and  I  forget  all  the  cu^ 
which  the  catechism  dispenses  to  the  world,  the  flesh,  and 
the  devil.    Asceticism  here  finds  no  defender  and  no  v.ctim 
Man  no  longer  goes  fancying  among  the  vague  aspirations  of 
the  mystics.    He  respects  laws,  and  w.lls  well,  but  to  h.m 
the  sensual  delights  of  love  and  the  cup  are  not  anf"l.='"d 
in  these,  to  him,  innocent  pleasures  Satan  dwells,      t  was  to 
the  joys  of  earth  that  the  rites  of  the  Aryans  looked;  the 


fh  ,, 


Giosue  Carducci 


II 


same  iovs  were  by  the  Semitic  religion  either  mocked  or 
quenched.    But  the  people  did  not  forget  them.    As  a  secretly 
treasured  national  inheritance,  despite  both  Christian  church 
and  Gothic  empire,  this  ancient  worship  of  nature  and  of  the 
joys  of  the  earth  remains  with  the  people.     It  is  this  spirit 
of  nature  and  of  natural  sensuous  delights,  and   lastly  of 
natural  science,  that  the  poet  here  addresses  as  Satan.     As 
Satan  it  appears  in   nature's  secret  powers  of  healing  and 
magic,  in  the  arts  of  the  sorcerer  and  of  the  alchemist.     The 
anchorites,  who,  drunk  with   paradise,  deprived  themselves 
of  the  joys  of  earth,  gradually  began  to  listen  to  these  songs 
from   beyond  the  gratings  of  their  cells-songs  of  brave 
deeds,  of  fair  women,  and  of  the  triumph  of  arms.      It  is 
Satan  who  sings,  but  as  they  listen  they  become  men  again, 
enamoured  of  civil  glory.     New  theories  arise,  new  masters, 
new  ideals  of  life.      Genius  awakes,  and   the   cowl  of  the 
Dominican  falls  to  earth.     Now,  liberty  itself  becomes  the 
tempter,     it  is  the  development  of  human  activity,  of  labour 
and  struggle,  that  causes  the  increase  of  both   bread   and 
laughter,  riches  and  honour,  and  the  author  of  all  this  new 
activity  is  Satan ;  not  Satan  bowing  his  head  before  hypo- 
critical worshippers,  but  standing  glorious  in  the  sight  of 
those  who  acknowledge  him.     This  hymn  is  the  result  of 
two  streams  of  inspiration,  which  soon  are  united  in  one 
and  continue  to  flow  in  a  peaceful  current  :Jhe  goojs  of  life  ^ 
and  genius  rebelling  against  slavery." 

-'■ymt^'^pf^riMm^  ils  inner  meaning  we  may  now 
refer  the  reader  to  the  hymn  itself.     [II] 

This  poem,  while  excelled  by  many  others  in  beauty  or  in 
interest,  has  nowhere,  even  in  the  poet's  later  verses,  a  riva 

in  daring  and  novelty  of  f onception .  ^d  none_serY£^fl  WfiU m 

to  tYP-fY  ^he  pTommmtMMi^M^'M^      a  national  poet 

"wTSThere  the  fetters  of  classic,   romantic,  and  religious 

tradition  thrown  off,  and  the  old  national,  which  is  in  sub- 


Giosue  Carducci 


rr 


stance  a  pagan,  soul  pouring  forth  in  all  freedom  the  senti- 
ments of  its  nature.  It  is  no  longer  here  the  question  of 
either  Guelph  or  Ghibelline ;  Oiristiaftily,  whether  of  the 
subjective  Northern  type^  brought  in  by  the  emperors,  or  of 

the  extinct  formalities  of  Rome^isjidden  lojaye  WJy ttt-tllf 

old  Aryan  love  of  nature  and  the'worship of outward beauty_ 

'^a  sensuous  pleasure.     The  reaction  here  witnessed  is  esse"n- 
•trmy  Hellenic  in  its  delight  in  objective  beauty,  its  bold  asser- 
tion of  the  rightful  claims  of  nature's  instincts,  its  abhorrence 
of  mysticism  and  of  all  that  religion  of  introspection  and  of 
conscience  which  the   poet  includes  under  the  term  "Se- 
mitic."    It  will  exchange  dim  cathedrals  for  the  sky  filled 
with  joyous  sunshine  ;  it  will  go  to  nature's  processes  and 
laws  for  its  oracles,  rather  than  to  the  droning  priests.    While 
the  worship  of  matter  and  its  known  laws,  in  the  form  of  a 
kind  of  apotheosis  of  science,  with  which  the  poem  opens 
and  closes,  may  seem  at  first  glance  rather  a  modern  than  an 
ancient  idea,  it  is  nevertheless  in  substance  the  same  con- 
ception as  that  which  anciently  took  form  in  the  myth  of 
Prometheus,  in  the  various  Epicurean  philosophies,  and  in 
the  poem  of  Lucretius.     Where,  however,  Carducci  differs^ 
frojn  his  contemporaries  and  Trom  the  classicists  so  called  is 
in  the  utter  frankness  of  his  renunciation  of  Christianity,  and_ 
ffie'bold  bringing  to  the  front  of  the  old  underlying  Hellenic 
.■^_„_^^^^  people.     That  which  others  wrote  about  he 
feels  intensely,  and  sings  aloud  as  the  very  life  of  himself  and 
of  his  nation.     That  which  the  foreigner  has  tried  for  cen- 
turies to  crush  out,  it  is  the  mission  of  the  nation's  true  poet 
and  prophet  to  restore. 

The  sentiments  underlying  Carducci's  writings  we  find 
to  be  chiefly  three:  a  fervent  and  Joyous  veneration  of  the 
great  poets  of  Greece  and  Rome ;  an  intense  love  of  nature, 
amounting  to  a  kind  of  worship  of  sunshine  and  of  bodily 
beauty  and  sensuous  delights;  and  finally  an  abhorrence  of 


i 


Giosue  Carducci 


«3 


the  supernatural  and  spiritual  elements  of  religion.      Inter- 
mingled with  the  utterances  of  these  sentiments  will^bejfound 
patriotic  effusions  mostly  in  the  usual  vein  of  aspirantTaHer"" 
"republitail  reftWis;"wHich7  while  of  a  national  interest,  are 
noTpeculfar  lo  ttte  author,  and  do  not  serve  particularly  to 
illustrate  the  Hellenistic  motive  of  his  writing.     The  same 
may  be  said  of  his  extensive  critical  labours  in  prose,  his  uni- 
versity lectures,  his  scholarly  annotations  of  the  early  Italian 
poets.     How  far  Carducci  conforms  to  the  traditional  char- 
acter of  the  Italian  poets— always  with  the  majestic  exception 
of  the  exiled  Dante  —  in  that  the  soft  winds  of  court  favour  are 
a  powerful  source  of  their  inspiration  on  national  themes,  may 
be  judged  from  the  fact  that  while  at  the  beginning  of  his 
public  career  he  was  a  violent  republican,  now  that  he  is 
known  to  stand  high  in  the  esteem  and  favour  of  Queen 
Margherita  his  democratic  utterances  have  become  very  greatly 
moderated,  and  his  praises  of  the  Queen  and  of  the  bounties 
and  blessings  of  her  reign  are  most  glowing  and  fulsome. 
Without  a  formal  coronation,  Carducci  occupies  the  position 
of  poet-IauTratrOf  Italy ^     A  little  over  fifty  years  of  age,  an 
active  student  and  a  hard-working  professor  at  the  University 
of   Bologna,  where  his  popularity  with  his  students  in  the 
lecture-room  is  equal  to  that  which  his  public  writings  have 
won  throughout  the  land,  called  from  time  to  time  to  sojourn 
in  the  country  with  the  court,  or  to  lecture  before  the  Queen 
and  her  ladies  at  Rome,  withal  a  man  of  great  simplicity, 
even  to  roughness  of  manners,  and  of  a  cordial,  genial  nature 
-Isuch  is  the  writer  whom  the  Italians  with  one  voice  call 
their  greatest  poet,  and  whom  not  a  few  are  fain  to  consider 
the  foremost  living  poet  of  Europe.* 

*  See  La  Poesia  e  V Italia  nella  Quarta  Crociata.  Discourses  in  the  pres- 
ence of  her  Majesty  the  Queen.     Nuova  Antobgia,  Rome,  February,  1889. 

The  poems  of  Carducci  have  been  published  for  the  most  part  in  the  follow- 
ing coUeclions :  Poesie  (Florence,  G.  Barbera,  1871)  comprises  the  poems  pre- 
viously published  under  the  pseudonym  Enotrio  Romano  in  three  successive 


/ 


..  Ciostd  Carducci 

14 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  development  of  the 
Hellenic  spirit  in  the  successive  productions  of  Carducci  s 
"  u  e,  to  note  his  emancipation  from  the  lingering  influences 
Tro^anticism,  and  his  casting  off  the  fetters  of  conventiona 
metre  in  the  Odi  Barhan.  But  as  all  this  ^as  been  done  fo 
us  far  better  in  an  autobiographical  sketch,  wh.ch  he  author 
gives  us  in  the  preface  of  thePo.1X.87O,  we  w.ll  here  only 
glance  briefly  at  some  of  the  more  characteristic  pomts  thus 

'  Mtttlluding  to  the  bitterness  and  violence  for  which  the 
Tuscans  are  famous  in  their  abuse,  he  informs  us  that  from 
Z  first  he  was  charged  with  an  idolatry  of  antiquity  and^^^^^ 
form,  and  with  an  aristocracy  of  style.     The  theatre  critics 
Sd  to  teach   him  grammar,  and  the  schoolmasters  said 
he  was  aping  the  Greeks.     One  distinguished  critic    aid  that 
hls^rse  revealed  "  the  author's  absolute  want  of  all  poetic 
faculty  »    The  first  published  series  of  poems  was  in  reality 
a  protest  against  the  religious  and  intellectual  bitterness  which 
prevailed  in  the  decade  preceding  1 860,  -  against  the  nothing- 
ness  and  vanity  under  whose  burden  the  country  was  langm^^^ 
injr-  against  the  weak  coquetries  of  liberalism  which  spoi  ed 
then  as  it  still  spoils  our  art  and  our  thoughts,  ever  unsatis- 
factory  to  the  spirit  which  will  not  do  things  by  halves,  and 
which  refuses  to  pay  tribute  to  cowardice."   Naturally,  even  m 
literary  matters  inclined  to  take  the  opposite  side,  Carducci 
felt  himself  in  the  majority  like  a  fish  out  of  water.      In  the 
revolutionary  years  .858  and  1859  he  wrote  poems  on  the 

issues- 1,  Juvenilia,  the  author's  early  productions  in  the  years  1850-1857. 
TTevia  Gratia,  written  between  the  years  .857  -^f  7°' ^^  'saZZL 
produced  in  the  decade  1860^1870:  Nuave  Poem.  iZir.Odt  Barbare,  Bo- 
fo^e  i877-  NuaveOdiBar5are.^m^,  iVi*^. /?/m..  Bologna.  X887.  Le- 
X  the  St  named  the  publisher  Zanichelli.  in  Bologna  has  also  .ssued 
"of  the  author's  Discorsi  L.Uerari  e  Siorici  ^-\^-2oJ^l^^^^ 
a  complete  edition  of  the  author's  writings,  m  twenty  vuK.  i6mo.  is  promised 
by  the  same  publisher. 


Giosue  Carducci 


"5 


Plebiscite  and  Unity,  counselling  the  king  to  throw  his  crown 
into  the  Po,  enter  Rome  as  its  armed  tribune,  and  there  order 
a  national  vote.     **These,"  says  the  poet,  ''were  my  worst 
things,  and  fortunately  were  kept  unpublished,  and  so  I  es- 
caped becoming  the  poet-laureate  of  public  opinion.     In  a 
republic  it  would  have  been  otherwise.     I  would  have  com- 
posed the  battle  pieces  with  the  usual  grand  words  — the 
ranks  in  order,  arms  outstretched  in  command,  brilliant  uni- 
forms, and  finely  curled  moustaches.    To  escape  all  temptation 
of  this  sort  I  resorted  to  the  cold  bath  of  philosophy,  the 
death-shroudsof  learning— /^wfMo/o/Mw^rarw  deW  erudi{ione. 
It  was  pleasant  amid  all  that  grand  talk  of  the  new  life  to 
hide  myself  in  among  the  cowled  shadows  of  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries.     I  journeyed  along  the  Dead  Sea  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  studied  the  movements  of  revolution  in 
history  and  in   letters;  then  gradually  dawned  upon  me  a 
?act  which  at  once  surprised  and  comforted  me.     I  found 
that  my  own  repugnance  to  the  literary  and  philosophical 
reaction  of  1815  was  really  in  harmony  with  the  experience 
of   many  illustrious  thinkers   and  authors.     My  own   sins 
of  paganism  had  already  been  committed,  and  in  manifold     ! 
splendid  guises,  by  many  of  the  noblest  minds  and  geniuses 
of  Europe.     This  paganism,  this  cult  of  form,  was  naught     \ 
else  but  the  love  of  that  noble  nature  from  which  the  solitary      ' 
Semitic  estrangements   had  alienated  hitherto  the  spirit  of 
man  in  such  bitter  opposition.      My  at  first  feebly  defined 
sentiment  of  opposition  thus  became  confirmed  conceit,  reason, 
affirmation  ;  the  hymn  to  Phoebus  Apollo  became  the  hymn 
to  Satan.     Oh,  beautiful  years  from  1861  to  1865,  passed  in 
peaceful  solitude  and  quiet  study,  in  the  midst  of  a  home 
where  the  venerated  mother,  instead  of  fostering  superstition, 
taught  us  to  read  Alfieri !     But  as  1  read  the  codices  of  the 
fourteenth  century  the  ideas  of  the  Renaissance  began  to  appear 
to  me  in  the  gilded  initial  letters  like  the  eyes  of  nymphs  in 


j^  Ct'osu^  Carducci 

the  midst  of  flowers,  and  between  the  lines  of  the  spiritual 
laude  1  detected  the  Satanic  strophe.     Meanwhile  the  image 
of  Dante  looked  down  reproachfully  upon  me;  but  1  might 
Rave  answered :  '  Father  and  master,  why  didst  thou  bring 
learning  from  the  cloister  into  the  piazza,  from  the  Latin  to 
the  vulgar  tongue?    Why  wast  thou  willing  that  the  ho 
breath  of  thine  anger  should  sweep  the  heights  of  papal 
and  imperial  power?   Thou  first,  O  great  public  accuser  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  gavest  the  signal  for  the  rebound  of  thought . 
that  the  alarm  was  sounded  from  the  bells  of  a  Gothic  cam- 
panile mattered  but  little ! '    So  m^^  mind  matufSiLlJUlflto-- 
standing  and  sentiment  to  thTlcvia  Gravia,  and  thence  more 
Tapm,  in   questions  of  social  \^^^^^Uj^^J}L,£!f;^' 
There  are  those  who  complain  that  1  am  not  whitT  was 
twenty-four  years  ago:-good  people,  for  whom  to  live  and 
develop  is  only  to  feed,  like  the  calf  qui  largis  mvenesat 
berbis    In  the  Juvenilia  I  was  the  armour-bearer  of  the  classics. 
In  the  Levia  Gravia  I  held  my  armed  watch.     In  the  Decen- 
naU,  after  a  few  uncertain  preliminary  strokes  of  the  lance, 
^T  venture  abroad  prepared  for  every  risk  and  danger.     I  have 
read  that  the  poet  must  give  pleasure  either  to  all  or  to  the 
few ;  to  cater  to  many  is  a  bad  sign.    Poetry  to-day  is  use- 
less  from  not  having  learned  that  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  exigencies  of  the  moment.     The  lyre  of  the  soul  should 
respond  to  the  echoes  of  the  past,  the  breathings  of  the  future, 
the  solemn  rumours  of  ages  and  generations  gone  by.    If,  on 
the  contrary,  it  allows  itself  to  be  swayed  by  the  breeze  of 
society's  fans  or  the  waving  of  soldiers'  cockades  and  profes- 
sors' togas,  then  woe  to  the  poet !    Let  the  po.t  express  him- 
self  and  his  artistic  and  moral  convictions  with  the  utmost 
possible  candour,  sincerity,  and  courage  ;  as  for  the  rest,  it  is 
not  his  concern.     And  so  it  happens  that  I  dare  to  put  forth 
a  book  of  verses  in  these  days,  when  one  group  of  our  literati 


*  '-kill,. 


Giosue  Carducci 


>7 


- 'P: 


arc  declaring  that  Italy  has  never  had  a  language,  and  another 
are  saying  that  for  some  time  past  we  have  had  no  literature ; 
that  the  fathers  do  not  count  for  much,  and  that  we  are  really 
only  in  the  beginnings.  There  let  them  remain ;  or,  as  the 
wind  changes,  shift  from  one  foreign  servitude  to  another!" 
In  my  selection  of  poems  for  translation,  regard  has  been 
had  not  so  much  to  the  chronological  order  of  their  produc- 
tion as  to  their  fitness  for  illustrating  the  three  important 
characteristics  of  Carducci  as  a  national   poet  which  were 

enumerated  above. 

The  first  of  these  was  his  strong  predilection  for  the  classics, 
as  evinced  not  only  by  his  veneration  for  the  Greek  and  Latin 
poets,  but  by  his  frequent  attempts  at  the  restoration  of  the 
ancient  metres  in  his  own  verse.     Of  his  fervent  admiration 
for  Homer  and  Virgil  let  the  two  sonnets  III  and  IV  testify, 
both  taken  from  the  fourth  book  of  the  Levia  Gravia.   Already 
in  the  Juvenilia,  during  his  "classical  knighthood,"  he  had 
produced  a  poem  of  some  length  on  Homer,  and  in  the  vol- 
ume which  contains  the  one  I  have  given  there  are  no  less 
than  three  sonnets  addressed  to  the  venerated  master,  en- 
titled in  succession,  ''Homer,"  *' Homer  Again,"  and  ''Still 
Homer."    I  have  chosen  the  second  in  order.     [HI] 
^  In  the  tribute  to  Virgil  [IV]  the  beauty  of  form  is  only 
equalled  by  the  tenderness  of  feeling.     It  shows  to  what 
extent  the  classic  sentiment  truly  lived  again  in  the  writer's 
soul,  and  was  not  a  thing  of  mere  intellectual  contemplation. 
In  reading  it  we  are  bathed  in  the  very  air  of  Campania;  we 
catch  a  distant  glimpse  of  the  sea  glistening  under  the  summer 
moon,  and  hear  the  wind  sighing  through  the  dark  cypresses. 
"    Here  it  will  be  proper  to  notice  the  efforts  made  by  Car- 
ducci not  only  to  restore  as  to  their  native  soil  the  long-dis- 
used metres  of  the  classic  poets,  but  to  break  loose  from  all 
formal  restrictions  in  giving  utterance  to  the  poetic  impulse. 


i8 


Giosue  Carducci 


This  intense  longing  for  greater  freedom  of  verse  he  expresses 
in  the  following  lines  from  the  Odi  Barbare : 

I  hate  the  accustomed  verse. 
Lazily  it  falls  in  with  the  taste  of  the  crowd. 
And  pulseless  in  its  feeble  embraces 

Lies  down  and  sleeps. 

For  me  that  vigilant  strophe 
Which  leaps  with  the  plaudits  and  rhythmic  stamp  of  the 

chorus, 
Like  a  bird  caught  in  its  flight,  which 

Turns  and  gives  battle. 

In  the  preface  of  the  same  volume  (1877)  he  pleads  in  be- 
half of  his  new  metres  that  *'  it  may  be  pardoned  in  him  that 
he  has  endeavoured  to  adapt  to  new  sentiments  new  metres 
instead  of  conforming  to  the  old  ones,  and  that  he  has  thus 
done  for  Italian  letters  what  Klopstock  did  for  the  Germans, 
and  what  Catullus  and  Horace  did  in  bringing  into  Latin  use 
the  forms  of  the  Eolian  lyric." 

In  the  Nucve  Rime  (1887)  are  three  Hellenic  Odes,  under 
the  titles  '' Primavere  Elleniche,"  written  in  three  of  the 
ancient  metres,  the  beauty  of  which  would  be  lost  by  trans- 
lation into  any  language  less  melodious  and  sympathetic  than 
the  Italian.    We  give  a  few  lines  from  each  : 

L    EOLIA 

Lina,  brumaio  turbido  inclina, 
Nell'  aer  gelido  monta  la  sera ; 
E  a  me  nell"  anima  fiorisce,  O  Lina, 
La  primavera. 

IL    DORICA 

/  Muorono  gli  altri  dii :  di  Grecia  i  numi 

Non  stanno  occaso  :  ei  dormon  ne"  matemi 
Tronchi  e  ne'  fiori,  sopra  i  monti,  i  fiumi, 
I  mari  eterni. 


Giosue  Carducci  »9 

"  A  Cristo  in  faccia  irrigidi  nei  marmi 
II  puro  fior  di  lor  bellezze  ignude : 
^  Nei  carme,  O  Lina,  spira  sol  nei  carme 

/  Lor  gioventude. 

in.    ALESSANDRINA 

Lungi,  soavi,  profondi ;  Eolia 
\  Cetra  non  rese  piii  dolci  gemiti 

Mai  nei  si  moUi  spirti 
Di  Lesbo  un  di  tra  i  mini. 

The  second  of  these  examples  demands  translation  as  exhib- 
iting perhaps  more  forcibly  than  any  others  we  could  select 
the  boldness  with  which  Carducci  asserts  the  survival  of  the 
Hellenic  spirit  in  the  love  of  nature  as  well  as  in  art  and  liter- 
ature, despite  the  contrary  influences  of  ascetic  Christianity: 

The  other  gods  may  die.  but  those  of  Greece 
No  setting  know  ;  they  sleep  in  ancient  woods, 
In  flowers,  upon  the  mountains,  and  the  streams, 
And  eternal  seas. 

In  face  of  Christ,*  in  marble  hard  and  firm. 
The  pure  flower  of  their  naked  beauty  glows ; 
In  songs,  O  Lina,  and  alone  in  songs. 
Breathes  their  endless  youth. 

The  reader  is  also  here  referred  to  the  ''  Invocation."    [V] 

From  this  glance  at  the  classic  form,  which  is  so  distinct 
a  feature  in  Carducci's  poems,  we  proceed  to  examine  the 
feeling  and  conceptions  which  constitute  their  substance,  and 
which  will  be  found  to  be  no  less  Hellenic  than  the  metres 
which  clothe  them.  Nothing  could  stand  in  stronger  con- 
trast with  the  melancholy  of  the  romantic  school  oT~poetS,  or 
with  the  subjective  thoughtfulness  and  austere  introspection 

*  Is  there  an  allusion  here  to  Michael  Angelo's  Christ  in  the  Church  of 
Santa  Maria  sopra  Minerva  at  Rome  ? 


SO' 


Giosu^  Carducci 


1/ 


,/ 


of  the  Christian,  than  the  unfettered  outbursts  of  song  in 
praise  of  the  joy  of  living,  of  the  delights  of  love  and  bod- 
ily pleasure,  and  of  the  sensuous  worship  of  beautiful  form, 
which  we  find  in  the  poems  "Sun  and  Love"  [VI]  and  the 
hymn  "To  Aurora."    [VII] 

The  latter  has  in  it  the  freshness  and  splendour  of  morn- 
ing mists  rising  among  the  mountains  and  catching  the  rosy 
kisses  of  the  sun.  Equally  beautiful  but  full  of  the  tran- 
quillity of  evening  is  the  Ruit  Mora  from  the  Odi  Barbate  of 

1877.    [VIll] 

No  one  will  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  beauty  of  the  fig- 
ure in  the  last  stanza  of  this  poem,  nor  with  the  picturesque 
force  of  the  *'  green  and  silent  solitudes"  of  the  first,  a  near 
approach  to  the  celebrated  and  boldly  original  conception  of 
a  sikniio  verde,  a  "green  silence,"  which  forms  one  of  the 
many  rare  and  beautiful  gems  of  the  sonnet  "To  the  Ox." 

As  an  example  of  a  purely  Homeresque  power  of  descrip- 
tion and  colouring,  and  at  the  same  time  of  an  intense  sym- 
pathy with  nature  and  exquisite  responsiveness  to  every  thrill 
of  its  life,  this  sonnet  stands  at  the  summit  of  all  that  Car- 
ducci has  written,  if  indeed  it  has  its  rival  anywhere  in  the 
poetry  of  our  century.     The  desire  to  produce  in  English  a 
suggestion  at  least  of  the  broad  and  restful  tone  given  by  the 
metre  and  rhythm  of  the  original  has  induced  me  to  attempt 
a  metrical  and  rhymed  translation,  even  at  the  inevitable  cost 
of  a  strict  fidelity  to  the  author's  every  word,  and  in  such 
a  poem  to  lose  a  word  is  to  lose  much.     Nothing  but  the 
original  can  present  the  sweet,  ever-fresh,  and  sense-reviving 
picture  painted  in  this  truly  marvellous  sonnet.    The  unusual 
and  almost  grotesque  epithet  of  the  opening  phrase  will  be 
pardoned  in  view  of  the  singular  harmony  and  fitness  of  the 

original. 

We  know  not  where  else  to  look  for  such  vivid  examples 


Giosue  Carducci 


21 


^s  Carducci  afTords  us  of  a  purely  objective  and  sensuous .. 

_jXmi»tli)^^^^t»  •^^t^'^*  ^  *^>'^*"S"'^        ^'°"'  ^^^  romantic, 
reflective  mood  which  nature  awakens  in  the  more  senti-  ^ 
""i^ntal  school  of  poets.     We  feel  that  this  strong  and  bril- 
liant objectivity  is  something  purely  Greek  and  pagan,  as 
contrasted  with  the  analysis  of  emotions  and  thoughts  which 
occupies  so  large  a  place  in  Christian  writing.     No  one  is 
better  aware  of  the  existence  of  this  contrast  than  Carducci 
himself.     For  the  dear  love  of  nature  — that  boon  of  youth 
before  the  shadows  of  anxious  care  began  to  darken  the 
mind,  or  the  queryings  of  philosophy,  the  conflicts  of  doubt, 
and  the  stings  of  conscience  to  torment  it— for  this  happy 
revelling  of  mere  animal  life  in  the  world  where  the  sun 
shines,  the  soul  of  the  poet  never  ceases  to  yearn  and  cry 
out.    The  consciousness  of  the  opposite,  of  a  world  of  thought, 
of  care,  and  of  conscience  ever  frowning  in  sheer  stern  con- 
trast from  the  strongholds  of  the  present  life  and  the  opin- 
ions of  men  —  this  is  what  introduces  a  kind  of  tragic  motive 
into  many  of  these  poems,  and  adds  greatly  to  their  moral, 
that  is,  their  human  interest.     For  the  poetry  of  mere  animal 
life,  if  such  were  poetry,  however  blissful  the  life  it  describes, 
would  still  not  be  interesting. 

Something  of  this  pathos  appears  in  the  poem  "To  Phc3ebus 
Apollo,"  [X]  where  the  struggle  of  the  ancient  with  the 
present  sentiments  of  the  human  soul  is  depicted.  It  will 
interest  the  reader  to  know  that  at  the  time  this  poem  was 
written  (it  appeared  in  Book  11.  of  the  J uvenilta)  the  author 
had  not  broken  so  entirely  with  the  conventional  thought  of 
his  time  and  people  but  that  he  could  consent  to  write  a 
lauda  §pirituale  [XI]  for  a  procession  of  the  Corpus  Domini^ 
and  a  hymn  for  the  Feast  of  the  Blessed  Diana  Guintini,  pro- 
tectress of  Santa  Maria  a  Monti  in  the  lower  Valdarno. 
When  called  by  the  Unita  Cattolica  to  account  for  this  sudden 
transformation  of  the  hymn-writer  into  the  odist  of  Phoebus 


22  Ctosid  Carducci 

Apollo  Qrducci  replied  by  reminding  his  clerical  critics  that 
even  in  his  nineteenth  year  he  was  given  to  writing  parodies 
of  sacred  hymns,  and  he  further  offers  by  way  of  very  doubt- 
ful apology  the  explanation  that,  being  invited  by  certain 
priests  who  knew  of  his  rhyming  ability  to  compose  verses 
for  their  feasts,  the  thought  came  into  his  head,  *'bemg  m 
those  days  deeply  interested  in  Horace  and  the  thirteenth- 
century  writers,  to  show  that  faith  does  not  affect  the  form 
of  poetry,  and  that  therefore  without  any  faith  at  all  one 
might  reproduce  entirely  the  forms  of  the  blessed  laudists  of 
the  thirteenth  century.     I  undertook  the  task  as  if  it  were  a 

wager.'*  .  , , 

In  the  lines  of  the  poem  To  Pbcebm  ApoUo  there  is  traceable 
a  romantic  melancholy,  the  faint  remnant  of  the  impression  left 
by  those  writers  through  whom,  says  Carducci,  "I  mounted 
to  the  ancients,  and  dwelt  with  Dante  and  Petrarch,"  viz., 
Alfieri,  Parini,  Monti,  Foscolo,  and  Leopardi.    He  has  not  yet 
broken  entirely  with  subjective  reflection  and  its  gloom,  and 
entrusted  himself  to  the  life  which  the  senses  realize  at  the 
present  moment  as  the  whole  of  human  well-being.    This  sen- 
timent becomes  more  strongly  pronounced  in  the  later  poems, 
where  not  even  a  regret  for  the  past  is  allowed  to  enter  to  dis- 
tract the  worship  of  the  present,  radiant  with  its  divine  splen- 
dour and  bounty.    The  one  thought  that  can  cast  a  shadow 
is  the  thought  of  death ;  but  this  is  not  at  all  to  be  identi- 
fied with  Christian  seriousness  in  reOecting  on  the  world  to 
come.    The  poet's  fear  of  death  is  not  that  of  a  judgment,  or 
a  punishment  for  sins  here  committed,  and  hence  it  is  not 
associated  with  any  idea  of  the  responsibility  of  the  present 
hour,  or  of  the  amending  of  life  and  character  in  the  present 
conduct.    The  only  fear  of  death  here  depicted  is  a  horror 
of  the  absence  of  life,  and  hence  of  the  absence  of  the  delights 
of  life     It  is  the  fear  of  a  vast  dreary  vacuum,  of  cold,  of 
darkness,  of  nothingness.     The  moral  effect  of  such  a  fear  is 


Ciosue  Carducci 


n 


only  that  of  enhancing  the  value  of  the  sensual  joys  of  the 
present  life,  the  use  of  the  body  for  the  utmost  of  pleasure 
that  can  be  got  by  means  of  it.  This  more  than  pagan 
materialism  finds  its  bold  expression  in  the  »>"es  f^om  the 
Nuove  Odi  Bar  bare  entitled  ' '  Outside  the  Certosa.      [XllJ 

In  studying  the  religious  or  theological  tendency  of  Car- 
ducci's  muse,  it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  constantly  the 
inherent  national  blindness  of  the  Hellenic  and,  in  equa    if 
not  greater  degree,  the  Latin  mind  to  what  we  may  call  a 
spiritual  conception  of  life,  its  duties,  and  its  destiny.     But 
in  addition  to  this  blindness  towards  the  spiritual  elements  or 
substance  of  Christianity  there  is  felt  in  every  renascent  Hel- 
lenic instinct  a  violent  and  unrelenting  hostility  towards  that 
ascetic  form  and  practice  which,  although  in  no  true  sense 
Christian,  the  greater  religious  orders  and  the  general  disci- 
pline of  the  Roman  Church  have  succeeded  in  compelling 
Christianity  to  wear.     The  mortification  of  nature,  the  con- 
demnation of  all  worldly  and  corporeal  delights,  not  in  their 
abus^  but  in  their  essential  and  orderly  use,  the  dishonour- 
ing of  the  body  in  regarding  its  beauty  as  only  an  mcentive 
to  sin,  and  in   making  a  virtue  of  ugliness,  squalor,  and 
physical  weakness -these  things  have  the  offensiveness  of 
deadly  sins  to  the  sensuous  consciousness  of  minds  of  the  , 
Hellenic  type.     To  spiritual  Christianity  Carducci  is  not  ad- 
verse because   it  is  spiritual-^ as  such  it  is  still  compara- 
tively an  unknown  element  to  Italian  minds-but  because 
it  is  foreign  to  the  national  instinct ;   because  it  came  in 
with  the  emperors,  and  so  it  is  indissolubly  associated  with 
foreign  rule  and  oppression.     It  is  the  Gothic  or  Teutonic 
infusion  in  the  Italian  people  that  has  kept  alive  whatever 
there  is  of  spiritual  life  in  the  Christianity  that  has  been  im- 
posed on  them  by  the  Roman  Church.    The  other  elements  of 
Romanism  are  only  a  sensuous  cult  of  beautiful  and  imposing 
forms  in  ritual,  music,  and  architecture  on  the  one  hand  ; 


H 


Giosue  Carducci 


Giosue  Carducci 


25 


and  on  the  other  a  stern,  uncompromising  asceticism,  which 
in  spirit  is  the  direct  contradiction  of  the  former.   While  the 
principle  of  asceticism  was  maintained  in  theory,  the  sincerity 
of  its  votaries  gradually  came  to  be  l>elieved  in  by  no  one ; 
the  only  phase  of  the  church  that  seized  hold  of  the  sym- 
pathies and  affections  of  the  people  was  the  pagan  element 
in  its  worship  and  its  festivals;  and  seeing  these,  the  popes 
were  wise  enough  to  foster  this  spirit  and  cater  in  the  most 
liberal  measure  to  its  indulgence,  as  the  surest  means  of 
maintaining  their  hold  on  the  popular  devotion.     In  the 
ever-widening  antagonism  between  the  spirit  and  the  flesh, 
between  the  subjective  conception  of  Christianity  on  the  one 
hand,  as  represented  by  the  Teutonic  race  and  the  empire, 
and  the  sensuous  and  objective  on  the  other,  as  represented 
by  the  Italic  race  and  the  pope,  may  we  not  discern  the  reason 
why  the  Italian  people,  in  the  lowest  depths  of  their  sensual 
corruption,  were   largely  and   powerfully  Guelph  in  their 
sympathies,  and  why  the  exiled  and  lonely  writer  of  the 
Divina  Commedia  was  a  Ghibelline  ?   It  is  at  least  in  the  an- 
tagonism of  principles  as  essentially  native  versus  foreign  that 
we  must  find  the  explanation  of  the  cooling  of  Carducci's 
ardour  towards  the  revered  master  of  his  early  muse,  even 
while  the  old  spell  of  the  latter  is  still  felt  to  be  as  irresistible  ^ 
as  ever,    fhis  double  attitude  of  reverence  and  aversion  we 
have  already  seen  neatly  portrayed  in  the  reference  Carducci 
makes  in  the  autobiograph.cal  notes  given  above  to  Dante  as 
the  great  "  accuser  of  the  Middle  Ages  who  first  sounded  the 
signal  for  the  reaction  of  modern  thought/'  with  the  added 
remark  that  the  signal  being  sounded  from  a  "  Gothic  cam- 
panile" detracted  but  little  from  the  grandeur  of  its  import. 
The  same  contrast  of  sentiment  finds  more  distinct  expression 
in  the  sonnet  on  Dante  in  Book  IV.  of  the  Lmia  Gravia.    [Xlll] 
But  nowhere  is  the  contrast  between  the  Christian  sense  of 
awe  in  the  presence  of  the  invisible  and  supernatural  and  the 


^ 


Hellenic  worship  of  immediate  beauty  and  sensuous  pleasure 
displayed  in  such  bold  and  majestic  imagery  as  in  the  poem  en- 
titled "In  a  Gothic  Church."    [XIV]     Here,  in  the  most 
abrupt  and  irreverent  but  entirely  frank  transition  from  the 
impression  of  the  dim  and  lofty  cathedral  nave  to  the  passion 
kindled  by  the  step  of  the  approaching  loved  one,  and  in  the 
epithets  of  strong  aversion  applied  to  the  holiest  of  all  objects 
of  Christian  reverence,  the  very  shock  given  to  Christian  feel- 
ing and  the  suddenness  of  the  awful  descent  from  heavenly 
to  ^atyric  vision  tell,  with  the  prophetic  veracity  and  power 
of  true  poetry,  what  a  vast  chasm  still  unbridged  exists  be- 
tween the  ancient  inherent  Hellenism  of  the  Italian  people 
and  that  foreign  influence,  named  indifferently  by  Carducci 
Semitic  or  Gothic,  which  for  eighteen  centuries  has  been  im- 
posed without  itself  imposing  on  them. 

The  true  poet  of  the  people  lays  bare  the  people's  heart. 
If  Carducci  be,  indeed,  the  national  poet  of  Italy  we  have  in 
this  poem  not  only  the  heart  but  the  religious  sense— we  had 
almost  said  the  conscience— of  the  Italian  people  revealed  to 
view.    Nor  is  this  all  Bacchantic ;  the  infusion  of  the  Teu- 
tonic blood  in  the  old  Etruscan  and  Italic  stock  has  brought  the 
dim  shadows  of  the  cathedral  and  its  awful,  ever-present 
image  of  the  penalty  of  sin  to  interrupt  the  free  play  of  Ital- 
ian sunshine.     But  just  as  on  the  canvas  of  the  religious 
painters  of  the  Renaissance  angels  as  amorous  Cupids  hover 
about  between  Madonna  and  saints,  and  as  in  the  ordinary 
music  of  an  Italian  church  the  organist  plays  tripping  dance 
melodies   or  languishing   serenades    between    the    intoned 
prayers  of  the  priests  or  the  canto  firmo  psalms  of  the  choir, 
so  here  we  behold  the  sacred  aisles  of  the  cathedral  suddenly 
invaded  by  the  dancing  satyr,  who,  escaping  from  his  native 
woods,  has  wandered  innocently  enough  into  this  his  ancient 
but  strangely  disguised  shrine. 

The  stanzas  that  follow   describe   Dante's  vision  of  the 


20 


Giosue  Carducci 


** Tuscan  Virgin"  rising  transfigured  amid  the  hymns  of 
angels.  The  poet,  on  the  contrary,  sees  neither  angels  nor 
demons,  but  is  conscious  only  of  feeling 

the  cold  twilight 
To  be  tedious  to  the  soul. 


and  then  exclaims : 

Farewell.  Semitic  God:  the  mistress  Death 
May  still  continue  in  thy  solemn  rites, 
O  far-off  king  of  spirits,  whose  dim  shrines 
Shut  out  the  sun. 

Crucified  Martyr !    Man  thou  cnicifiest ; 
The  very  air  thou  darkenest  with  thy  gloom. 
Outside,  the  heavens  shine,  the  fields  are  laughing. 
And  flash  with  love. 

The  eyes  of  Lidia— O  Lidia.  I  would  see  thee 
Among  the  chorus  of  white  shining  virgins 
That  dance  around  the  altar  of  Apollo 
In  the  rosy  twilight, 

Gleaming  as  Parian  marble  among  the  laurels, 

Flinging  the  sweet  anemones  from  thy  hand, 

Joy  from  thy  eyes,  and  from  thy  lips  the  song 

Of  a  Bacchante ! 

Odi  Barbare. 

Notwithstanding  the  bold  assertion  of  the  Hellenic  spirit 
in  this  and  in  the  greater  part  of  his  poems,  that,  neverthe- 
less, Carducci  has  not  been  able  to  restore  his  fair  god  of  light 
and  beauty,  the  Phoebus  Apollo,  to  the  undisputed  sway  he 
held  in  the  ancient  mind  is  evident  from  the  shadows  of 
doubt,  of  fear,  and  anxious  questioning  which  still  darken 
here  and  there  the  poet's  lines,  as  in  the  sonnet  Innan^i, 
Jnnan{i!  [XV]  It  is  here  that  the  stern  element  of  tragedy, 
the  real  tragedy  of  humanity,  makes  itself  felt  in  this  rhap- 
sodist  of  joy  and  of  love.     U  comes  to  tell  us  that  to  the 


Giosue  Carducci 


37 


Italian  as  he  is  to-day  life  has  ceased  to  be  a  carnival,  and 
that  other  sounds  than  that  of  the  Bacchante's  hymn  have 
gained  an  entrance,  with  all  their  grating  discord,  to  h.5  ear^ 
and  to  silence  this  intruder  will  the  praises  of  Lidia  and 
of  Apollo  suffice,  be  they  sung  on  a  lyre  never  so  harmonious 
and  sweet?  In  this  sonnet  is  depicted  in  wonderful  imagery 
the  ancient  and  awful  struggle  which  the  sensuous  present 
life  sustains  with  the  question  of  an  eternity  lying  beyond. 

While  our  interest  in  Carducci  is  largely  owing  to   the 

^q{  the  Italian. psiJills,  »t  wouia 


character  he  i^p^r<  ^^  the  ^ ,     r^ 

^^~-|g7^;^;^^Si;rt^^         him  a  popular  poet.    For  popu- 

larlkl^h^r  wlti^^  "^^^^^^'  *;" 

never  aimed,  as  is  evident  from  his  satisfaction  at  narrowly 
escaping  being  made  a  political  poet-laureate.      Instead  of 
writing  down  to  the  level  of  popular  apprehension  and  taste 
he  rather  places  him.self  hopelessly  aloof  from  the  contact  of^ 

The masses  by  his  style  of  writing,  which,  simple  and  pure  as 

iHSminrthe  cultured  reader,  is  nevertheless  branded  by  the  . 

Ivefagrrtanan  as  learned  and obscure,  and  not  suited  to  the 

ordinary  intelligence.    As  an  innovator  both  in  the  form  and 
in  the  content  of  his  verse,  he  has  still  a  tedious  warfare    o 
wage  with  a  people  so  conservative  as  the  Italians  of  dd 
habits  and  old  tastes,  confirmed  as  these  have  been  by  the 
combined  influence  of  centuries  of  political  and  ecclesiastical 
bondage.      But   Carducci's   writing,  springing    nevertheless 
from  a  strong  instinct,  looks  only  to  the  people  for  a  final 
recognition,  even  though  that  has  to  be  obtained  through  the 
medium  of  the  learned  classes  at  first.     How    far    he    has 
succeeded  in  getting  this  vantage-ground  of  a  general  recogni- 
tion  and  acquiescence  on  the  part  of  the  learned,  the  follow- 
ing testimony  from  Enrico  Panzacchi,  himself  a  critic  and  a 
poet  of  high  reputation,  may  help  us  to  conclude : 

*'  I  believe  that  I  do  not  exaggerate  the  importance  of  Car- 
ducci  when  I  affirm  that  to  him  and  to  his  perseverance  and 


28 


Giosue  Carducci 


steadfast  courageous  work  we  owe  in  great  part  the  poetic 
revival  in  Italy. 

**I  have  great  faith,  I  confess,  in  the  initiative  power  of 
men  of  strong  genius  and  will,  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  while 
it  is  the  fashion  of  the  day  to  explain  always  the  individual 
by  the  age  he  lived  in,  I  think  it  is  often  necessary  to  invert 
the  rule,  and  explain  the  age  by  the  individual." 

He  goes  on  to  show  that,  indifferent  alike  to  conventional 
laws  and  public  opinion,  Carducci  always  persisted  in  the 
constant  endeavour  to  far  Parky  to  '*do  his  art."  He  defied 
the  critics,  and  tried  to  be  himself. 

Mr.  Symonds  says  of  the  Renaissance  that  "it  was  a  return 
in  all  sincerity  and  faith  to  the  glory  and  gladness  of  nature, 
whether  in  the  world  without  or  in  the  soul  of  man."  Car- 
ducci reflects  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  in  so  far  as  by 
setting  free  the  national  instincts  he  has  made  way  for  the 
Hellenic  reaction  in  favour  of  the  "glory  and  the  gladness 
of  the  world  without."  He  has  shown,  moreover,  how  for- 
eign to  these  instincts  is  Christianity,  considered  apart  from 
the  Roman  Church,  whether  in  its  ascetic  or  in  its  spiritual 
aspects.  But  it  cannot  be  said  of  him,  whatever  may  have 
been  true  of  the  poets  of  the  Renaissance,  that  he  has  reawak- 
ened or  rediscovered  *'  the  glory  and  gladness  of  nature  in 
the  soul  of  man,"  and  without  this  the  gladness  of  the  world 
without  is  but  a  film  of  sunshine  hiding  the  darkness  of  the 
abyss.  Indeed,  if  the  soul  and  not  the  senses  be  addressed, 
we  question  whether  beneath  all  the  Dionysian  splendours  and 
jollity  of  Carducci's  verses  there  be  not  discernible  a  gloom 
more  real  than  that  of  Leopardi.  Even  for  Italy  the  day  is 
past  when  Hellenism  can  fill  the  place  of  Christianity  ;  the 
soul  craves  a  substance  for  which  mere  beauty  of  form, 
whether  in  intellect,  art,  or  nature,  is  a  poor  and  hollow  sub- 
stitute ;  and  to  revive  not  the  poetry  alone,  but  the  humanity 
of  the  nation,  a  force  is  needed  greater  and  higher  than  that 
to  be  got  by  the  restoration  of  either  dead  Pan  or  Apollo. 


4 


u 


CARDUCCI 


AND   THE   CLASSIC   REALISM 

^PJOURNING  one  autumn  in  a  quiet />^«sw)«  at  Lugano, 
I  came  in  contact  with  a  fellow-boarder,  who,  not- 
withstanding he  bore  the  title  of  a  Sicilian  count  of 
very  high-sounding  name,  proved  on  acquaintance  to  be  a 
man  of  serious  literary  taste  and  not  above  accepting  pecu- 
niary compensation  for  the  products  of  his  pen. 

He  was  engaged  at  that  time  in  translating  into  the  Italian 
a  well-known  English  classic,  and  was  in  the  habit  of  appeal- 
ing to  me  occasionally  for  my  judgment  as  to  the  accuracy 
of  his  interpretation  of  an  English  word  or  phrase. 

This  led  to  pleasant  interviews  on  the  literary  art  in 
general. 

It  was  one  day  when  the  conversation  turned  on  the  ex- 
treme materialism  of  certain  scientific  writers  of  the  day,  and 
especially  on  Mantegazza  of  Florence,  whose  grossness  in 
treating  of  the  human  passions  has  called  forth  expressions  of 
disgust  from  Italians,  as  well  as  others,  that  my  Sicilian  friend 
quietly  remarked,  "We  Italians  can  never  allow  the  holy 
Trine  to  be  destroyed — the  True,  the  Good,  the  Beautiful. 
It  is  not  enough  that  a  writer  tell  the  facts  as  they  are; 
nor  that  his  purpose  be  a  useful  one;  there  must  be  the 

29 


JO 


Gimu^  Carducci 


element  of  beauty  also  in  his  work,  or  the  Italians  will  not 
accept  it ;  and  the  ugly,  the  monstrous,  and  deformed  the 
Italians  will  not  endure." 

I  thought  herein  he  proved  his  lineage  from  a  stock  older 
than  even  his  family  title  — that  old  race  of  the  land  where 
Theocritus  sang  as  if  for  beauty  alone,  and  whose  vttna 
cherishes  still  her  deep-down  fires  uncooled  and  untamed  by 
modern  as  by  ancient  contrivances  of  man. 

It  is  this  presence  of  the  love  of  the  beautiful  that  every- 
where accompanies  the  Greek  race  and  their  descendants,  and 
imparts  what  we  may  call  the  Hellenic  instinct  of  form. 
And  in  this  sense  of  form  born  of  the  love  of  beauty  lies  the 
secret  of  the  immortal  art  of  the  Greeks,  whether  as  presented 
in  sculpture,  architecture,  painting,  or  letters. 

The  survival  of  a  certain  Hellenic  religious  feeling  in  the 
Italian  people  after  centuries  of  a  superimposed  Christianity 
has  already  been  treated  of  in  the  previous  essay.  I  desire 
here  to  speak  of  Carducci  as  affording  an  example— perhaps 
one  among  many,  but  I  know  none  better —of  the  restoration 
of  the  Greek  love  of  form  to  modern  letters,  and  so  as  illus- 
trating what  we  may  designate  as  the  classic  realism. 

No  term  has  been  more  abused  of  late  years  than  this  word — 
realism.  Become  the  watchword  of  schools  of  "  realists"  in 
every  branch  of  art  and  literature,  it  has  been  reduced  at  last 
to  a  service  as  empty  of  meaning  as  was  ever  the  vaguest 
idealism  empty  of  reality. 

The  tendency  of  the  age  has  been  unquestionably  one  of 
ultimation ;  everything  presses  into  the  plane  of  outermost 
effect.  We  have  seemed  to  be  no  more  satisfied  with  the 
contemplation  of  intangible  ideals :  we  rest  content  only  with 
what  hand  can  touch  and  eye  rest  upon.  The  "power  in 
ultimates "  is  the  display  of  force  characteristic  of  this  age 
of  the  world.     The  forces  physical  and  mental  have  been 


Giosue  Carducci 


5« 


always  there:  it  has  taken  a  time  like  the  present,  an  age 
of  inventive  frenzy  filled  with  a  yearning  for  the  doing  and 
trying  of  things  long  dreamt  of,  to  give  vent  to  these  hidden 

forces. 

This  tendency  to  ultimation,  the  seeking  expression  of  in- 
most emotions  and  conceptions  in  material  embodiments,  has 
characterized  of  late  years  every  form  of  mental  activity. 

Religion  exemplifies  it  in  the  impatience  the  people  ex- 
hibit at  fine  analyses  of  doctrines  and  laborious  attempts 
at  creed-patching,  at  the  same  time  that  they  are  ready  to 
engage  in  schemes  of  benevolence  and  social  reform  unparal- 
leled in  the  history  of  the  past.  They  would  fain  substitute 
a  religion  of  doing  for  a  religion  of  believing;  and  so  impa- 
tient are  they  of  the  restrictions  of  dogma  that  they  resent 
inquiry  into  the  quality  or  inward  motive  of  the  doing,  or 
even  into  its  moral  effect  in  the  long  run,  so  only  some 
"good  work"  be  done  and  done  quickly. 

We  see  the  same  tendency  in  music  and  the  drama  won- 
derfully illustrated  in  the  whole  conception  and  effort  of  the 
Wagnerian  school.  Expression  is  everything.  The  question 
is  not  — Is  the  thing  in  itself  noble,  but  is  the  expression 
of  it  complete,  unhindered  by  previous  conventionalities? 
Is  nothing  kept  back,  or  left  to  the  imagination,  but  every- 
thing, rather,  brought  out  into  the  actuality  of  sound,  of 
color,  of  living  performers,  and  material  accessories? 

The  Ibsen  drama,  the  Tourguenief  and  Tolstoi  school  of 
novelists,  not  to  speak  of  Zola  and  his  followers  in  France, 
writers  like  Capuana  and  Verga  in  Italy,  and,  although  in  a 
quite  different  vein,  Howells  among  novelists  and  Whitman 
among  poets  in  America,  have  aimed  chiefly  to  give  a  faithful 
account  of  life  as  it  is  seen.  Some  have  come  dangerously 
near  the  assertion  that  by  some  mysterious  law  the  bold  doing 
ennobles  even  a  commonplace  motive,  and  that  a  regard  for 
truth  is  enough  whether  there  be  any  beauty  behind  it  or  not. 


Giosue  Carducci 


The  power  realised  in  full  and  free  expression  is  one  of  the 
most  exquisite  delights  known  to  man.     We  of  a  northern 
race  who,  according  to  the  saying  of  our  French  neighbor, 
"take  our  pleasures  sadly,"  do  so  because  of  a  hereditary 
conviction  of  the  sanctity  of  the  unexpressed.      We  have 
therefore  been  slowest  in  arriving  at  these  efforts  towards 
realism,  or  the  untrammelled  giving  forth  of  the  inward  self 
into  outward  embodiment.     That  pure  externalism  of  the 
southern  or  Greek  nature  which  sought  its  highest  satisfaction 
in  a  visible  embodiment  of  the  divine  in  art,  and  which  dis- 
tinguishes still  the  Roman  from  the  Saxon  religious  nature, 
has  been  regarded  as  verging  on  the  sinful.    It  is  not  strange 
that  a  tendency  so  long  suppressed  when  once  set  free  should 
rush  even  into  lawless  extremes,  and  that  an  age  or  school  of 
writers  tasting  the  delights  of  this  liberty  for  the  first  time 
should  be  loth  to  resign  it  and  be  ready  rather  to  sacrifice 
all  to  its  further  extension.     It  is  quite  in  accordance  with 
this  theory  that  puritan  America  should  have  given  birth  to 
Walt  Whitman,  who,  with  all  his  lawlessness,  is  in  many 
respects  the  mostof  a  Greek  that  modern  literature  can  show. 
To  what  extremes  this  delight  has  sought  indulgence  is 
shown  not  more  plainly  in  Zola  and  his  school  above  men- 
tioned than  in  the  whole  contemporary  school  of  French  pic- 
torial art.     We  see  here  how  form,  as  expression,  indulged 
in  for  its  own  sake,  apart  from  a  due  consideration  of  the 
substance  within    the  form,  becomes   itself  monstrous  and 
vicious.     This  is  the  essentially  immoral  element  in  art  — 
the  licentious  worship  of  form,  or  of  external  shape,  regard- 
less of  an  internal  soul  or  motive. 

When  the  realist  says:  ''With  the  motive  of  nature,  of 
society,  of  man,  I  have  nothing  to  do;  it  is  enough  if  I 
portray  faithfully  his  conduct,"  he  thereby  advertises  the 
fact  that  he  is  not  an  artist,  but  a  kind  of  moral  photographer. 
He  falls  short  of  being  an  artist  in  just  the  degree  in  which 


Giosu^  Carducci 


35 


he  sees  the  details  of  form  apart  from  their  soul  or  spiritual 
essence ;  and  as  this  spiritual  element  is  that  wherein  the  unity 
of  the  world  as  idea  exists,  therefore,  failing  to  apprehend 
this,.he  fails  to  lay  hold  of  the  universal  aspects  which  alone 
can  assign  true  relation  and  true  meaning  to  any  of  the  details 
treated  of.  It  is  the  apprehension  of  the  universal  element 
underlying  the  particulars  that  constitutes  the  peculiar  gift  of 
the  artist.  It  is  indeed  true  that  nature,  or  humanity,  is  its 
own  interpreter  and  its  own  preacher;  and  the  most  faithful 
servant  of  either  will  be  he  who  most  exactly  presents  his 
subject  as  he  finds  it.  But  the  subject  is  never  found  by 
the  true  artist  detached  from  its  community-life,  or  severed 
from  the  endless  woof  of  combinations,  of  causes  and  effects, 
of  law  and  recompense,  which  go  to  make  up  any  present 
moment  of  its  existence  ;  these  constitute  its  "story."  So  far 
as  these  inner  conditions  are  recognized  and  felt  in  giving  the 
ultimate  expression,  so  far  alone  is  the  portrayal  a  real  one 
in  the  true  sense. 

Undoubtedly  the  inmost  motive  that  can  give  form  to  the 
literature  of  any  age  or  race  is  the  religious  one,  by  which 
1  mean  the  recognition  of  a  life  within  and  above  nature,  not 
our  own, but  to  which  we  entertain  a  personal  relation.  This 
is  in  the  truest  sense  that  '*soul  "  which  "  is  form,  and  doth 
the  body  make,"  and  its  presence  or  absence  is  what  suffi- 
ciently distinguishes  the  true  from  a  false  realism. 

An  age  without  a  religion  can  produce  only  a  soulless,  and 
so  an  unreal,  art.  What  it  calls  art  may  abound  in  shape, 
but  will  possess  no  form  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  For 
form  is  the  combination  of  particulars  with  a  view  to  a  single 
purpose,  for  which  every  particular  exists  and  to  which  it  is 
subordinate  ;  it  is  therefore  never  a  many,  but  always  a  one 
out  of  many.  This  inward  controlling  motive  that  consti- 
tutes out  of  many  the  one,  is  the  living  substance  within  every 
true  or  real  form.     That  which  does  not  possess  this  motive 

3 


Giosuh  Carducci 

of  unity  is  not  form,  but  shape,  or  an  artificial  cast  made  to 
Im  Je  the  living  thing,  but  having  no  <;;;;"    ,^ 

is  thus  the  form  that  grows  from  *' ^f^^VS  I  eless 
the  imoression  mechanically  imposed  on  passive  ana  meie 
Mil  fom  without.   The  modern  French  school  of  realists 
Tr   are  the  mtest  e>umples  of  this  substitution  of  shape  for 
form  aTd  i  of  pseudo-realism.    They  have  given  us  corpses, 
Shefphysi  a'  or  moral,  and  called  them  human  beings. 
TKhave  preferred  the  charnel-house,  the  diss-ting^oonr 
TThe  fJof  carnage,  as  »^e   subjects  m   which  to  ^^ 
play  most   effectively   their   realism.     The   "•"^'^   «^°" "» 
Se  subject,  the  more  hideously  exact  the  representation,   he 
tne  suDjeci,  ...  ,  ,  ,u.  .,tist       In  literature  the 

more  credit  was  claimed  for  the  artist.  ,Hmired 

TaL  was  parallel.  Nothing  so  vile  but  it  was  to  be  admi  ed 
TitTf  ithfulness  in  representation.  The  inner  motive,  the 
r„r,l  ou  oose  of  the  writing  or  the  painting,  was  not  on  y 
Z  there  C  the  producer  Lrned  the  judgment  that  would 
not  tnere,  Dui  1"-^  i-  „»>,„  c^nfiment  of  reverence 

look  for  it.    Never  was  religion,  or  the  ^""7";°' ' 
for  the  spiritual  as  the  world's  idea,  so  manifestly  wanting  as 
r  h  se'^ecent  French   materialists.     The  abjuring  of  the 
m  these  rec  ^^  ^^  extinguish  the 

rmTelement  and  so  wf  find  in  these  schools  sKilfully 
pS  Ses  a'nd  an  almost  matchless  power  of  expression; 
hut   after  all,  how  little  is  expressed  !  .  .    ^     i  *    ♦ 

'1i.mpare     Greek  statue  of  Phidias's  time  with  the  .a  ^t 
paction  of  a  Parisian  studio.    Both  are  feo^ard   col- 
ourless, senseless  marble;  but  can  we  not  ^^  '"  °"^'^' 
breathing  of  a  god,  while  in  the  other  we,  at  the  most 
breaming  ui  '  e.     '  ,^        ,,:_.s  ^f  a  human  animal? 

study  w  th  a  cntical  vision  the  ounines  oi  ■>. 

Reality  is  not  reached  by  the  negative  process  of  taking 
away  conventional  guises  and  concealments ;  and  Vet  modem 
artUU  and  writers  have  alike  thought  to  get  at  tru  h  in  this 
way  But  the  nude  is  not  the  more  real  for  bemg  nude^ 
The  reality  of  an  object  depends  on  what  is  within  it,  and 


Giosue  Carducci 


35 


not  on  anything  that  men  put  on  or  take  away  from  it. 
How  many  writers  of  late  years  have  been  deluding  them- 
selves with  the  idea  that  if  one  can  only  succeed  in  avoiding 
everything  like  a  moral  purpose,  or  even  interesting  situa- 
tions and  reveal  what  they  call  the  bare  facts  of  experience, 
one  may  thereby  attain  to  the  real  ?  As  if  ever  art  existed 
except  in  the  discovering  of  unity,  the  interpretation  of  pur- 
pose, and  in  the  suggesting  of  that  which  is  interesting  to 

the  human  heart ! 

The  emptiness  of  this  kind  of  realism,  which  is  as  naked 
of  soul  within  as  of  garments  without,  is  proved  by  the 
reaction  that  is  already  setting  in  in  France,  where  mate- 
rialism has  made  its  boldest  claims  in  the  domain  of  art.  Not 
only  in  art  is  there  a  strong  movement  for  restoring  the  lost 
elements  of  romance  and  piety,  leading  to  a  religious  severity 
almost  like  that  of  the  pre-Raphaelites,  but  in  literature 
there  is  a  similar  protest  against  the  degradation  of  the  real 
to  the  plane  of  mere  soulless  matter.  M.  Paul  Bourget,  who 
has  been  through  all  phases  of  French  expression  and  knows 
its  extremes,  gives  voice  to  this  reaction  in  the  following 
passage  from  his  ''Sensations  d'ltalie"  : 

'*  Sans  doute,  les  grands  peintres  ont  vu  d'abord  et  avant 

tout  rStre  vivant ;  mais  dans  cet  ^tre,  ils  ont  degage  la  race 

et  ils  ne  pouvaient  pas  la  sentir,  cette  race,  sans  demeler 

I'obscur  ideal  qui  s'agite  en  elle,  qui  vegete  dans  les  creatures 

infirieures,  ignore  d'elles-mSmes  et  cependant  consubstantiel 

I  leur  sang.     La  langueur  et  la  robustesse  ^  la  fois  de  ce  pays 

de  montagnes  dont  le  pied  baigne  dans  la  fievre,  le  mysticisme 

des  compatriotes  de  Saint  Fran9ois  d'Assise  et  leur  sauvagerie, 

la  melancolie  songeuse  prise  devant  I'immobile  sommeil  des 

lacs,  tous  ces  traits  elabores  par  le  travail  seculaire  de  I'here- 

dite,  le  Perugin  les  a  degages  plus  nettement  qu'un  autre, 

mais  il  n'a  eu  qu'^  les  degager.     Sa  divination  instinctive  les 

a  reconnus,  sans  peut-etre  qu'il  s'en  rendit  compte,  dans  des 


-^  Giosue  Carducci 

coupes  de  joues,  des  nuances  de  prunelles,  des  airs  de  tgte. 
Cest  1^,  dans  cette  interpretation  k  la  fois  soumise  et  g^niale, 
que  reside  la  veritable  copie  de  la  nature  ou  tout  est  dme, 
mame  et  surtout  la  forme,-ame  qui  se  cherche  qu.  se  m6- 
connait  parfois,  qui  s'avilit,  mais  une  ^me  tout  de  meme  et 

qui  ne  se  revele  qu'^  rime."  *  ^  „        •      t 

A  Frenchman  of  to-day  become  an  admirer  of  Perugmo! 
A  tendency  to  realism,  unlike  that  of  French  art  in  subject, 
but  not  unlike  in  method,  is  that  which  is  exhibited  m  Eng- 
land in  the  recent  religious  novelists  of  the  class  headed  by 
the  authoress  of  "Robert  Elsmere."     Here,  again,  the  effort 
has  been  to  get  at  the  real  by  stripping  off  conventional  re- 
ligious admissions,  pretensions,  and  errors,  and  depicting  a 
moral  basis  of  conduct  which  can  exist  independently  of  creed 
and  church.     The  result  has  been  disappointing,  because  a 
creed  incapable  of  perversion  or  corruption  becomes  as  life- 
less and  as  powerless  a  factor  in  human  character-building  as 
is  the  multiplication  table ;  and  without  a  miraculous  incar- 
nation of  Deity  as  its  basis  and  its  imperative  authority,  the 
whole  system  of  Christian  ethics,  when  thus  reduced  to  a 
scientific  conclusion  or  to  an  invention  of  man's  individual 

-.Doubtless  the  great  painters  saw.  first  and  before  all  things,  thehurn^ 
being ;  but  in  this  being  they  saw  the  race,  and  they  cou  d  not  dtscem  the  ,^ce 
^Z;t  disengaging  the  vague  ideal  which  struggles  .n  U.  ^^^^  ^^^^^^ 
inferior  creatures,  unknown  to  themselves  and  yet  -""^"^^^^^^^^^/'f  J*^;*' 
blL     The  languor  and.  at  the  same  time,  the  strength  of  this  land  of  moun- 
tains.' whose  feet  are  bathed  by  the  waters  of  fever-breed.ng  marshes   Ae 
Isticism  and  the  wildness  of  the  compatriots  of  St.   Franas  of  As   s    the 
r^amy  melancholy  inspired  by  the  contemplation  of  sleepmg  bk«-a  1  those 
tSrebborated  by  the  working  of  heredity  through  centunes.  Penigmo  saw 
r^  dearly  than  any  one  else,  but  he  had  only  to  detect  them.     He  d.vmed 
Them  instinctively  in  the  outline  of  the  cheek,  the  colour  of  th-ye^th^    - 
of  the  head.     It  is  in  this  interpretation,  at  once  humble  and  sympathetic, 
that  the  veritable  imitation  of  nature  consists,  in  which  all  is  soul,  even,  and 
Itve  all  the  form-a  soul  which  seeks  itself,  disguises  itself  at  tunes  and 
e^n  debars  itself,  but  a  soul  nevertheless  and  one  that  reveals  itself  only  ta 
thesouL" 


Giosui  Carducci 


yi 


moral  sense,  loses  not  only  its  power  to  mfluence  morally, 
but  even  to  nterest  other  minds.  The  "  real "  bas.  of  rehgjon 
thus  arrived  at  is  found  to  be  no  religion  at  all,  but  only  the 
priva  opinion  of  this  authoress  as  to  what  .s  good  and 
right,  with  every  divine  and  therefore  every  un.versal  and 
obligatory  element  in  it  left  out. 

I  have  spoken  indiscriminately,  above,  of  the  realists  in 
our  modern  literature  as  all  subject  to  the  temptat.on  to  rest 
satisfied  with  photographic  imitations  of  nature  rather   han 
with  a  reality  created  from  their  apprehension  of  its  ideal 
form     The  end  sought  for  is  faithfulness  in  expression,  and 
the  danger  is  that  of  making  subordinate  to  this  the  substance 
of  what  is  expressed.    But  among  these  writers  there  are  a  1 
LTees  of  approach  to  the  genuine  realism  which  undoubt- 
Xlike  the  art  of  the  Greeks,  is  a  thing  that  can  never 
die'and  which,  even  if  for  a  long  interval  set  a^'de. 's -re 
to  return  again  to  its  rightful  place  as  the  only  true  form  of 

"AmonTthe  various  aspirants  to  the  title  of  realist,  we 
haCe  no  more  interesting  examples  than  in  our  own  Howe.k 
and  Whitman,  both  being  avowed  prophets  of  this  school  of 
writing      In  Whitman  we  see  a  generous  nature  run  away 
w  th  by  the  passion  of  expression.     His  words  are  heaped 
L  sand-dunes.    There  is  a  sound  of  roaring  waves,  but 
Z  landscape  is,  too  often,  on  the  whole,  shapeless  and 
wearisome.     One  feels  that  there  is  meaning  in  the  poets 
m"d   but  the  expression  is  excessive,  and  so  without  form. 
The  delight  of  ultimation  has  become  a  frenzy  of  word-piling 
L  word-inventing.    The  disappointment  is  like  that  expe- 
rL«d  on  seeing  a  piece  of  sculpture  which  reveals  a  bo  d 
and  vigorous  design  with  magnificent  anatomy  and  musc^a 
strength,  but  which  has  a  weak  line  in  the  face.    It  just 
falls  short  of  being  art. 


38 


Giosu^  Carducci 


With  Howells  the  charm  of  his  realism  lies  in  the  subtlety 
of  his  concealment  of  it.  The  deep  moral  purpose  which, 
like  a  strong,  irresistible  current,  underlies  his  recent  and  more 
serious  writing,  is  all  the  more  potent  because  it  is  not 
"  pointed" ;  and  the  reader  is  allowed  to  indulge,  as  if  with 
the  author  himself,  in  the  little  delusion  that  this  is  only  the 
ordinary  superficial  aspect  of  an  every-day  world  which  is 
being  described,  and  that  things  do  thus  merely  happen  as 
they  happen,  without  design  or  reason.  So  perfect  is  the 
form  and  so  true  to  nature  that,  with  the  author,  we  keep  up, 
too,  the  little  deception,  that  it  is  with  the  form  itself  that 
we  are  pleased,  and  that  this  constitutes  the  realism  of  which 
the  author  is  so  ardent  an  advocate.  Meanwhile  we  learn, 
when  the  story  is  ended,  that  this  realism  was  all  rnformed 
with  a  soul  of  moral  and  divine  purpose,  and  that  this  is  all 
that  is  real  in  it  as  in  anything  else. 


I 


To  distinguish  from  the  pseudo-realism  of  matter  the 
genuine  realism  that  is  soul-informed,  1  do  not  know  a  better 
name  for  the  latter  than  the  Classic  Realism.  I  mean  by 
this  something  as  far  remote  as  possible  from  the  classic 
formalism  of  the  age  of  Pope  and  Dryden,  as  remote  indeed 
as  form  is  from  formalism.  For  in  that  period  it  was  neither 
truth  to  nature  nor  truth  to  the  imagination  that  was  aimed 
at  in  expression,  but  rather  a  cold  and  rigid  conformity  to 
the  rules  of  correct  writing  as  found  in  the  recognized  stan- 
dards. "Classic"  hence  got  to  mean  merely  according  to 
the  standards.  But  by  a  Classic  Realism  we  will  certainly 
understand  that  effort  to  obtain  a  form  of  expression  which 
recognizes  both  the  internal  and  the  external  reality  of  things, 
and  is  able  to  combine  both  in  one  ultimation  like  the  soul 
and  body  that  make  the  one  man. 

The  subjectivity  of  the  Saxon  mind  and  a  large  inheritance 
of  both  the  classic  formalism  and  the  romanticism  of  former 


^(J^sb^H^ 


Giosue  Carducci 


39 


periods  of  English  literature  have  prevented  our  English 
^^riters  from  aUaining  that  spontaneous  realism  wh.ch  was 
native  to  the  Hellenic  mind  ;  and  yet  t^lX  ^-?.^^;^ 
recognise  and  interpret  it  when  found.  This  did  Tenny^n 
when  he  chose  for  translation  the  following  lines  closing  the 
Eighth  Book  of  the  "Iliad": 

As  when  in  heaven  the  stars  about  the  moon 
Look  beautiful,  when  all  the  winds  are  laid. 
And  every  height  comes  out.  and  jutting  peak. 
And  valley,  and  the  immeasurable  heavens 
Break  open  to  their  highest;  and  all  the  stars 
Shine,  and  the  shepherd  gladdens  in  his  heart : 
So.  many  a  fire  between  the  ships  and  stream 
Of  Xanthus  blazed  before  the  towers  of  Troy. 
A  thousand  on  the  plain  :  and  close  by  each 
Sat  fifty  in  the  blaze  of  burning  fire  ; 
And.  champing  golden  grain,  the  horses  stood. 
Hard  by  their  chariots,  waiting  for  the  dawn. 

The  same  vision  into  the  charmed  world  of  the  classic  real- 
isn!  had  Keats  when  he  wrote  his  sonnet  "  On  First  Looking 
into  Chapman's  Homer,"  and  put  a  whole  age  of  ecstatic  de- 
light into  these  matchless  lines: 

Oft  of  one  wide  expanse  had  I  been  told 

That  deep-browed  Homer  ruled  as  his  demesne : 
Yet  did  I  never  breathe  its  pure  serene 

Till  I  heard  Chapman  speak  out  loud  and  bold  : 

Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken ;      • 

Or  like  stout  Cortez  when,  with  eagle  eyes. 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific -and  all  his  men 

Look'd  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise— 
Silent,  upon  a  peak  in  Darien. 

Listen  to  Theocritus  describing  in  most  realistic  language 
the  Joys  of  Peace.    Notice  how  he  does  not  so  much  as  men- 


40 


Giosui  Carducci 


tion  any  emotion,  but  awakens  it  by  his  faithful  description 
of  the  objective  world : 

And  oh !  that  they  might  till  rich  fields,  and  that  unnumbered 
sheep  and  fat  might  bleat  cheerily  through  the  plains,  and  that 
oxen,  coming  in  herds  to  the  stalls,  should  urge  on  the  traveller  by 
twilight  And  oh  !  that  the  fallow  lands  might  be  broken  up  for 
sowing,  when  the  cicada,  sitting  on  his  tree,  watches  the  shepherd 
in  the  open  day  and  chirps  on  the  topmost  spray  ;  that  spiders  may 
draw  their  fine  webs  over  martial  arms,  and  not  even  the  name  of 
the  battle-cry  be  heard.    [Idyl  XVI.] 

Keats  has  felt  the  same  appeal  of  nature  to  human  sym- 
pathy in  all  the  humblest  forms  of  life,  and  has  expressed  it 
in  his  sonnet  on  the  "Grasshopper  and  the  Cricket"  : 

The  poetry  of  earth  is  never  dead. 

When  all  the  birds  are  faint  with  the  hot  sun, 

And  hide  in  cooling  trees,  a  voice  will  run 

From  hedge  to  hedge  about  the  new-mown  mead : 

That  is  the  grasshopper"  s  — he  takes  the  lead 

In  summer  luxury  —  he  has  never  done 

With  his  delights,  for.  when  tired  out  with  fun, 

He  rests  at  ease  beneath  some  pleasant  weed. 

The  poetry  of  earth  is  ceasing  never  : 

On  a  lone  winter  evening,  when  the  frost 

Has  wrought  a  silence,  from  the  stove  there  shrills 

The  cricket's  song,  in  warmth  increasing  ever. 

And  seems  to  one  in  drowsiness  half  lost. 

The  grasshopper  "s  among  some  grassy  hills. 

This  is  realism,  but  a  truly  classic  realism  ;  it  is  earth,  but 
the  "poetry  of  earth." 

Probably  Whitman  has  here  and  there  approached  as 
nearly  as  any  English  writer  to  this  pure  realism,  and,  when 
he  has  not  allowed  his  delight  in  words  to  outrun  his  in- 
ward conception,  he  has  given  us  pictures  possessing  much 
of  the  vivid  objectivity  of  the  Greek  realists.    Compare  with 


Giosue  Carducci 


4« 


the  above  passage  from  Theocritus  the  Farm  Picture  drawn 
by  Whitman  in  these  two  lines: 

Through  the  ample  open  door  of  the  peaceful  country  bam 
A  sun-lit  pasture  field,  with  cattle  and  horses  feeding. 

Or  this: 

Lo,  't  is  autumn. 

Lx).  where  the  trees,  deeper  green,  yellower  and  redder, 

Cool  and  sweeten  Ohio's  villages,  with  leaves  fluttering  in  the 

moderate  wind. 
Where  apples  ripe  in  the  orchards  hang  and  grapes  on  the  trel- 

lis'd  vines. 
(Smell  you  the  smell  of  the  grapes  on  the  vines  ? 
Smell  you  the  buckwheat  where  the  bees  were  lately  buzzing  ?) 
Above  all.  lo.  the  sky  so  calm,  so  transparent  after  the  rain,  and 

with  wondrous  clouds. 
Below,  too,  all  calm,  all  vital  and  beautiful,  and  the  farm  prospers 

well. 

Perhaps  it  is  because  Whitman  is  not  the  literary  heir  of 
the  past,  but  the  beginner  of  his  line,  that  he  enjoys  this 
freedom  and  completeness  of  ultimation.  He  could  dare  what 
Keats,  born  to  the  purple,  would  fain  have  dared,  but,  in  his 
sonnet  to  Haydon,  confesses  his  fear  of  attempting: 

Haydon  !  forgive  me  that  I  cannot  speak 
Definitively  of  these  mighty  things ; 
Forgive  me  that  I  have  not  eagles'  wings, 
That  what  I  want  I  know  not  where  to  seek. 
And  think  that  I  would  not  be  over  meek 
In  rolling  out  up-followed  thunderings 
Even  to  the  steep  of  Heliconian  springs. 
Were  I  of  ample  strength  for  such  a  freak. 

Undoubtedly  true  it  is  that  a  spring-like  freshness  and 
vigour  in  Whitman's  poems  give  voice  to  the  life  of  a  strong 
and  youthful  nationality;  and  in  grateful  appreciation  of  this 
we  will  not  stop  to  inquire  to  what  extent  he  owes  his 


41 


Gmue  Carducci 


present  popularity  to  the  charm  of  novelty.  But,  novel  as 
his  style  may  seem,  it  is  but  the  re-discovered  secret  of  all 
true  art,  the  realism  that  is  the  ultimation  of  the  soul. 

That  Goethe  was  a  realist  in  this  sense  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  where  the  emotion  was  deepest  and  the  moral  sub- 
stance of  his  writing  the  most  intense  and  unmistakable,  the 
form  was  purely  objective  and  classic  — dealing  with  the 
simplest  and  commonest  of  the  world's  every-day  material, 
and  indulging  in  little  or  no  reflection  or  introspection. 
Such  is  he  in  the  Hermann  und  Dorothea ,  at  once  the  most 
Teutonic  and  the  most  Hellenic  of  modern  poems.  Of  this 
Professor  Dowden  says  in  a  recent  essay  :  * 

*' Goethe  never  attempted  to  transform  himself  into  a 
Greek  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  seemed  to  him  essential  for  the 
object  which  he  had  in  view  that  he  should  remain  a  Ger- 
man, since  it  was  from  the  alliance  of  the  Teutonic  genius 
with  the  genius  of  Greece  that  he  hoped  for  the  birth  of  the 
ardent  child  Euphorion.  And  in  the  representative  poem  of 
this  period,  Hermann  und  Dorothea,  if  Goethe  is  more  than 
elsewhere  a  Greek  in  the  bright  purity  of  his  art  and  its  flne 
simplicity  of  outline,  here  also  more  than  elsewhere  in  the 
body  of  thought  and  feeling  he  is  a  German  of  the  Germans." 

Coming  now  to  study  Carducci  as  a  poet  who  more  per- 
fectly than  any  other  living,  perhaps,  reflects  the  classic  real- 
ism of  his  Hellenic  literary  ancestry,  I  desire  to  emphasise 
as  a  point  of  peculiar  interest  the  fact  that  the  religious 
element  which  1  have  spoken  of  above  as  the  most  essential 
one  in  all  art  is  here  not  Christian,  but  avowedly  pagan; 
but  that,  as  such,  it  supplies  that  inward  essence  to  Carducci's 
poems  that  gives  them  reality.  There  is  all  the  difference 
imaginable  between  the  description  of  landscape  in  his  poem 
on  the  peninsula  of  Sermione  [XVI]  and  that  of  our  modern 
*  Goethe's  Friendship  with  Schiller.  FoHmghtly  Review,  Aug.,  1891. 


Giosue  Cardticci 


4J 


writers  who  think  to  have  outgrown  Christianity  and  see  no 
suggestion  of  supernatural  presence  or  influence  in  the  world 
around  them.  Were  Carducci  himself  a  believer  in  the  present 
existence  of  the  Gods  of  Greece,  he  could  hardly  have  infused 
a  more  intense  life  into  his  writing  than  he  has  done  by  the 
continually  suggested  presence  of  the  happy  gods,  sirens,  and 
nymphs  of  the  classic  mythology.  Our  modern  poets  can 
use  the  same  mythologic  personages  in  figurative  embellish- 
ment or  in  allegoric  allusion.     In  Carducci  they  are  real  pres- 

ences  such  as  Wordsworth  sighed  for  in  his  sonnet,  ''The 
'^orld  is  too  much  with  us": 

Great  God  !  I  "d  rather  be 
A  pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn,— 
So  might  I.  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn  ; 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea ; 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn  ! 

and  as  Keats  felt  when  writing  in  his  *'Ode  on  a  Grecian 
Urn"  these  lines: 

Heard  melodies  are  sweet,  but  those  unheard 

Are  sweeter  ;  therefore,  ye  soft  pipes,  play  on : 
Not  to  the  sensual  ear,  but,  more  endear'd, 
Pipe  to  the  spirit  ditties  of  no  tone : 


O  Attic  shape  !  Fair  attitude  !  with  brede 
Of  marble  men  and  maidens  overwrought, 

With  forest  branches  and  the  trodden  weed  ; 
Thou  silent  form !  dost  tease  us  out  of  thought 

As  doth  eternity. 

The  same  vivid  realisation  of  the  presence  of  the  super- 
natural in  nature  under  truly  pagan  forms  is  seen  in  Carducci's 
poem  "To  Aurora"  [XVII]: 

Thou  risest  and  kissest.  O  Goddess,  with  rosy  breath  the  clouds, 

Kissest  the  dusky  pinnacles  of  marble  temples. 


44' 


Giosue  Carducci 


In  this  poem  is  contrasted  in  most  realistic  manner  the 
Greek  sense  of  the  sunlight  as  a  divine  presence,  'niparting 
only  joy  to  men  and  leading  them  to  seek  their  delights 
under  the  open  sky,  with  the  exhausting  nightly  dissi- 
pations of  modern  life  and  the  hatred  of  daylight  which 
recalls   men   to   their   labour: 

Ours  is  a  wearied  race : 

Sad  is  thy  face.  O  Aurora,  when  thou  risest  over  our  towers. 

The  dim  street-lamps  go  out.  and.  not  even  glancing  at  thee. 

A  pale-faced  troop  go  home  imagining  they  have  been  happy. 

Angrily  at  his  door  is  pounding  the  ill-tempered  labourer. 

Cursing  the  dawn  that  only  calls  him  back  to  his  bondage. 

Next  to  the  emotion  of  the  supernatural,  we  are  struck  with 
the  intense  sympathy  with  nature  both  animate  and  inanimate, 
which  gives  so  lively  a  glow  to  Carducci's  description.  The 
sonnet  on  "  The  Ox  "  [IX]  1  have  referred  to  in  the  previous 
essay;  here  I  would  call  attention  to  that  addressed  "To  a 
Horse"  [XVII],  which,  if  the  former  can  be  called  Homeric, 
can  equally  claim  to  be  Phidian  in  the  pure  outline  of  the 
drawing  and  the  Olympic  spirit  that  seems  to  quiver  in  the 
poet's  words : 

O  that  for  thee  might  bla«e  the  sands  Elean. 
For  thee  great  hymns  the  godlike  Pindar  sing.     ^^ 
Following  thee  there  upon  the  waves  Alphaean ! ' 

Keats  proves  how  deeply  he  has  imbibed  the  Greek  poetic 
spirit  in  his  sonnet  on  the  "Grasshopper  and  the  Cricket"; 
for  here  he  expresses  the  same  intense  joy  of  communion  with 
a  certain  soul  in  nature  which  caused  Theocritus  to  never 
tire  of  singing,  or  having  his  Sicilian  goatherds  sing,  of  the 
bees  that  fed  the  imprisoned  Comatas  all  through  the  spring- 
time, of  the  Oaks  that  sung  the  dirges  of  the  shepherd 
Daphnis,  of  the  "  shegoats  feeding  on  the  hill,"  of  **  the  young 
lambs  pasturing  on  the  upland  fields  when  the  spring  is  on 


Giosm  Carducci 


45 


the  wane,"  of  "  the  white  calves  browsing  on  the  arbutus," 
of  the  "cicada  to  cicada  dear,"  "the  prattling  locusts,"  and 
«*  lizards  that  sleep  at  midday  by  the  dry  stone  wall." 

With   the   same   zest   arducci   delights  to   sing  of  the 
"forests  awaking  with  a  cool  shiver "  at  the  rising  of  Aurora, 
of  "the  garrulous  nests  that  mutter  amid  the  wet  leaves"  in- 
the  early  dawn,  of  the  "grey  gull  far  off  that  screams  over 
the  purple  sea,"  "the  sorrel  colt  breaking  away  with  high 
lifted  mane  and  neighing  in  the  wind,"  and  "the  pack  of 
hounds,  wakeful,  answering  from  their  kennels."    What  Mr. 
Lang  says  of  Theocritus  may  be  as  truly  said  of  Carducci : 
**  There  is  nothing  in  Wordsworth  more  real,  more  full  of 
the  incommunicable  sense  of  nature.  ...    It  is  as  true  to 
nature  as  the  statue  of  the  native  fisherman  in  the  Vatican." 
[Introduction  to  Theocritus.-]      Especially  are  we  aware  of 
the  almost  oppressive  feeling  of  nature's  languor  and  sweet 
melancholy  on  reading  Carducci's  poems  on  "A  Dream  m 
Summer"  [XVlll]   and  "On  a  Saint  Peter's  Eve"  [XIX]. 
Here    indeed,  the  feeling  is  more  modern  than  ancient,  but 
the  mode  of  expressing  it  is  the  same.    How  like  Homer  is 
the  picture  of 

The  sun  across  the  red  vapours  descending, 
And  falling  into  the  sea  like  a  shield  of  brass 
Which  shines  wavering  over  the  bloody  field  of  war. 
Then  drops  and  is  seen  no  more. 

It  seems  like  the  reverse  of  the  figure  in  the  "Iliad,"  where 
the  armed  Diomed  is  described  : 

Forth  from  his  helm  and  shield  a  fire-light 
Then  flashed,  like  autumn  star  that  brightest  shines 
When  newly  risen  from  his  ocean  bath. 

And  further,  when  we  read  of  the  swallows  that 

Wove  and  rewove  their  crooked  flight  around  the  gutters. 
While  in  shadows  malarious  the  brown  sparrows  were  chattering ; 


46 


Giosue  Carducci 


Giosue  Carducci 


47 


and  how  there  comes 

through  the  humid  air 
The  song  of  the  reapers,  long,  distant,  mournful  and  wearied  — 

a  line  which  can  only  tell  its  full  tale  of  tender  sadness  in  the 

original : 

il  canto 
de  mietitori.  longo,  lontano.  piangevole.  stance— 

how  the  sun  looks  down 

like  a  cyclops  heavy  with  wine— 

and  we  are  then  as  suddenly  awakened  out  of  our  delicious 
reverie  by  the  screaming  of  a  peacock  and  a  bat's  wing  graz- 
ing our  head,  we  know  that  the  poetry  is  real  not  by  its  mere 
accuracy  of  description,  but  by  the  feeling  that  it  awakens  as 
only  nature  itself  could  awaken  it. 

The  "Summer  Dream"  recalls,  in  the  vividness  and  deli- 
cacy of  its  landscape  and  tenderness  of  feeling,  perhaps  more 
of  Dante  than  of  the  ancient  poets.  There  is  a  vision  of 
the  mother  walking  with  the   poet's  little  brother  by  the 

river  bank, 

the  happy  mother  walking  in  the  sunlight, 

which  suggests  Dante's  glimpse  of  the  Countess  Matilda  in 
the  daisy-sprinkled  meadow,  described  in  the  twenty-eighth 
canto  of  the  "  Purgatory."  The  bells  of  Easter-eve  are  telling 
from  a  high  tower  that 

on  the  morrow  Christ  would  rise  again. 

From  the  sea  far  below  comes  up  the  odorous  breeze,  while 

on  its  waters  four  white  sails  rock  slowly  to  and  fro  in  the  sun. 

The  poet's  thoughts  wander  to  where,  in  the  solemn  shades 
of  Certosa  and  on  the  flowering  banks  of  the  Arno,  lie  at  rest 
the  beloved  ones.     But  quickly,  with  the  sudden  waking 


i 


\ 


from  the  nap,  is  dispelled  the  vision  of  the  poet  and  with 
it  the  modern  introspective  gloom ;  these  give  place  to  the 
realism  and  the  day-light  contentment  of  the  old  time: 

Lauretta's  joyous  song  was  ringing  through  all  the  chambers 
While  Bice,*  bending  over  her  frame,  followed  silent  the  work  of 
the  needle. 

There  is  something  majestic  in  the  moral  portraiture  of  the 
poem  on  "  The  Mother."  [XX]  We  seem  to  be  looking  on  a 
colossal  bronze  figure,  in  which  are  blended  pure  natural  joy 
and  an  instinct  of  the  divine  holiness  of  motherhood.  The 
reproach  contained  in  the  last  verse  belongs  to  the  present 
time  of  social  unrest;  it  is  hard  to  convey  in  English  the  full 
intent  of  the  subtle  phrase : 

la  giustizia  pia  del  lavoro — . 

Paul  Bourget  speaks,  in  his  Sensations  d^lialie,  of  the  simplicity 
"peculiar  to  the  lofty  style  of  Italian  poetry  introduced  by 
Dante,  under  which  one  feels  the  glorious  origin  of  the  lan- 
guage "  ;  and  he  quotes,  as  illustrating  this  simplicity,  Car- 
ducci's  "divine  sonnet"  commencing: 

Passa  la  nave  mia.  sola,  tra  il  pianto. 

[XXI]     On  this  he  remarks: 

"The  quality  of  the  words  in  which  Roman  vigour  still 
palpitates,  the  direct  force  of  the  image,  the  construction,  at 
once  flowing  and  concise,  of  the  sentence,  give  this  poetry 
the  charm  of  precision  which  is  the  distinctive  characteristic 
of  the  genius  of  the  Romans.  It  is  at  once  sober  and  grand." 
Surely  no  better  example  of  such  writing  could  anywhere 
be  found  than  in  the  poem  on  "The  Mother." 

With  what  awful  severity  such  a  style  lends  itself  to  the 
exposure  of  the  corruption  and  inhumanity  of  society,  like 

*  Familiar  contraction  of  the  name  Beatrice. 


48 


Giosue  Carducci 


a  veritable  Juvenal  returned  to  hurl  his  satire  at  these  modern 
times,  is  shown  in  the  poem  on  "The  Carnival."    [XXII] 

Another  phase  of  Qrducci's  genuine  realism  is  the  subtle 

art  of  blending  with  nature,  not  his  own  personality,  but  that 

of  great  souls  of  the  past  who  have  lived  amid  the  scenes 

described.     Of  this  a  fine  example  is  the  poem  "Sermione" 

mentioned  above.   [XVI]     The  peninsula  so  named,  which 

juts  boldly  out  into  the  southern  bay  of  the  Largo  di  Garda, 

the  Lacus  Benacus  of  the  Romans,  is  about  equidistant  from 

Mantua  on  the  south,   the  birthplace  of  Virgil,  and  from 

Verona  on  the  east,  the  birthplace  of  Qtullus.    Near  by  is 

situated  one  of  the  castles  of  the  Scaligers,  where  Dante  may 

have  had  his  abode  when  taking  refuge  with  that  family  on 

his  banishment  from  Florence  in  1316.     At  the  extremity  of 

the  promontory  are  still  seen  the  relics  of  the  villa  of  Catullus, 

in  which  he  is  supposed  to  have  written  many  of  his  poems, 

especially  the  one  beginning 

Peninsulamm.  Sirmio,  insular um que 
Ocelle. 

How  endeared  was  the  lake  to  the  tender-hearted  poet,  and 
how  its  cool  and  placid  shores  brought  solace  to  his  bosom, 
rent  with  the  passions  of  Rome's  giddy  life,  Carducci  tells  in 
the  song  of  the  Sirens — 

Come  to  us,  Quintus  Valerius ! 

Here  to  our  grottos  descend  still  the  sunrays,  but  silvery,  and 

mild  as  those  of  Cynthia. 
Here  the  assiduous  tumults  that  burden  thy  life  but  resemble  the 

distant  humming  of  bees. 

We  feel  ourselves  to  be  listening  for  the  poet,  and  would 
fain  with  him  enjoy  the  fresh  air,  the  soothing  calm, 

While  Hesperus  over  the  waters  broadens  his  rosy  face. 
And  the  waves  arc  lapping  the  shore. 


Giosm  Carducci 


49 


In  the  glimpses  afforded,  in  this  poem,  of  Garda  lifting 
her  dusky  shoulders  over  the  liquid  mirror. 

Singing  the  while  a  saga  of  cities  ancient  and  buried, 
And  their  barbaric  kings ; 

of  Catullus, 

Mooring  all  day  long  to  the  wet  rocks  his  pitched  canoe 
And  watching  in  the   phosphorescent  waves  the  eyes  of  his 
Lcsbia ; 

of  the 

white  swans  swimming  down  through  the  silvery  Mincio; 

and, 

from  the  green  pastures  where  sleeps  Bianore,  the  sound  of  Vir- 
gilius'  voice ; 

and  of  the 
face  stem  and  grand  looking  out  from  the  tower  of  the  Scaligers, 

centuries  of  literary  history  seem  to  pass  before  our  eyes  in 

living  procession. 

Most  tender  of  all  these  tributes  of  the  poet,  interweaving 
the  memory  of  his  revered  predecessors  and  masters  with  the 
nature  loved  by  them,  and  by  himself  for  them,  is  the  sonnet 
addressed  to  Petrarch  [XXllI] : 

If  far  from  turbid  thoughts  and  gloomy  mood. 

It  is  as  delicate  as  the  odour  of  jessamine 

in  the  green  blackness  of  the  tangled  wood, 

and  breathes  a  rich  melancholy,  as  if, 

when  day  is  done, 
A  nightingale  from  bough  to  bough  were  singing. 

The  sonnets  addressed  to  the  more  recent  poets,  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  seem  mainly  to  have  served  as  vents  for  Car- 

4 


50 


Giosm  Carducci 


ducci's  own  indignation  at  the  literary  and  political  degen- 
cracy  of  the  present  time.  Many  of  them  are  from  among 
the  poet's  earlier  productions,  and  the  changes  which  have  oc- 
curred since  their  writing  make  them  seem  to  belong  already 
to  a  past  period  when  perhaps  more  than  at  present  his 
severe  reflections  on  his  country  and  countrymen  were 
deserved.  A  foreigner  can  hardly  enter  into  the  bitterness 
of  vituperation  which  finds  utterance  in  such  poems  as  those 
«'  In  Sauli  Croce"  [XXVlll],  or  ''  The  Voice  of  the  Priests" 
[XXIX],  the  sonnet  addressed  to  Vittorio  Alfieri  [XXV], 

O  de  r  italo  agon  supremo  atleta. 

and  that  to  Goldoni,  the  "Terence  of  the  Adrla";  but  all  of 
these,  which  we  may  call  the  literary  sonnets,  have  a  certain 
universal  value  in  that  they  reflect  more  than  individual 
feeling.  Each  poet  addressed  is  identified  in  some  way  with 
the  nation's  weal  or  woe ;  and  the  soul  of  the  patriot,  and 
no  mere  dilettante  admiration,  is  what  pours  forth  those  fer- 
vid utterances  which,  in  another  tongue  and  to  the  ear  of 
strangers,  will  naturally  often  seem  overwrought. 

No  less  truly  does  the  soul  of  the  father  speak  in  the  beau- 
tiful verses  "  On  my  Daughter's  Marriage,"  and  the  soul  of 
manly  friendship  in  that  little  song  **At  the  Table  of  a 
Friend,"  which  seems  as  if  it  had  dropped  from  the  pages  of 
Horace  like  a  purple  grape  from  the  cluster  all  odorous  with 
its  bloom. 

Over  all  others  in  stern  and  majestic  portraiture  rise  those 
verses,  both  of  the  earlier  and  later  period,  in  which  Carducci 
treats  of  Dante  and  his  influence.  Nowhere  are  we  more 
impressed  than  here  with  the  strange  fascination  of  that  man 

who 

made  things  good  and  evil  to  tell  their  talc  through  him  the  fatal 
prophet ; 


Giosue  Carducci 


5' 


against  whose  Gothic  sphere  Carducci's  Hellenic  spirit  con- 
tinually fretted  and  rebelled.  Yet  his  soul  is  ever  thrilled 
(see  the  Sonnet  on  the  Sixth  Centenary  of  Dante  [XXXIV]) 
with  awe  at  the  reappearing  of  that  "  mighty  Form," 

when  shook  the  Adrian  shore  and  all  the  land  Italia  trembled, 

which,  ^.,  .  » 

like  a  morning  mist 

Did  march  along  the  Apenninian  strand, 

Glancing  adown  the  vales  on  either  hand. 

Then  vanished  like  the  dawn ; 

while  **in  earthly  hearts  a  fear  arose,  discovering  the  awful 
presence  of  a  God,"  and  there, 

where,  beyond  the  gates,  the  sun  is  burning. 
The  races  dead,  of  war-like  men  and  wise, 
With  joy  saluted  the  great  soul's  returning.  « 

The  antagonism  between  the  pagan  and  the  Christian  re- 
ligious instincts  comes  to  light  in  all  that  Carducci  writes  of 
his  revered  master.  Half  in  anger  he  chides  the  awful  singer 
who 

Comes  down  from  heaven  bringing  the  Hymn  Supreme, 

while  upon  his  brow  shines 

a  radiance  divine 
Like  his  who  spake  with  God  in  Sinai,— 

because  he  cared  not  for 

His  poor  country  and  the  endless  strife  that  rent  its  cities. 

With  the  splendours  of  the  holy  kingdom,  amid  which  Dante 
stood,  Carducci  contrasts  the  mortal  fields  of  civil  war  and  the 
wastes  deserted  and  malignant, 
whence  comes  the  sound,  dreary  and  dull,  of  dying  warriors*  sighs; 


ja 


Giosuh  Carducci 


and  vet  no  commentator  seems  to  become  so  transformed  as 
arducci  into  Dante's  own  being  and  manner  when  contem- 
plating  and  describing  him.  The  poem  on  Dante,  begmnmg 
with  the  words  [XXXIII] : 

Forte  sembianze  di  novella  vita, 

recalls,  in  its  statuesque  strength  and  supple  beauty,  Michael 
Angelo's  ''Sleeping  Slave."  It  breathes  all  through  w,th  he 
spirit  of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  In  the  narrative  of  Dante  s 
secret  heart-life  and  soul-life  it  seems  as  if  we  were  turning 
new  leaves  of  La  Vita  Nova  rather  than  those  of  a  nineteenth, 
century  critic.  No  voice  but  Dante's  seems  to  speak  in  lines 
like  these,  describing  the  first  awaking  of  the  passion  of  love 
in  the  youthful  poet's  heart: 

Sighing  and  pensive,  yet  with  locks  aglow 
With  rosy  splendour  from  another  air, 

Love  made  long  stay: 
And  such  the  gentle  things 
He  talked  to  thee  with  bashful  lips  :  so  sweetly 
He  entered  all  the  chambers  of  thy  heart 
That  no  one  ever  knew  to  love  like  thee. 

This  surely  is  the  -  intelletto  d'  amore"  of  Dante  himself 

Hardly  less  like  Dante  is  the  picture  of  Beatrice  in  that 
half-playful,  half-worshipful  poem  on  that  mysterious  per- 
sonage  [XXXV]  : 

Like  our  Lady  from  heaven 

She  passes  before  me, 
An  angel  in  seeming,  and  yet  all  so  ardent 

My  mind  stopped  thinking 

But  to  look  at  her, 
And  the  soul  was  at  rest,— but  for  sighing  I 

How  sweet  and  true  an  echo  from  Sonnet  XXV  in  La  Vita 

Nova: 

Tanto  gentile  e  tanto  onesta  pare  ! 


Giosue  Carducci 


53 


Here  Carducci  treats  Beatrice  under  the  favourite  character  of 
the  Idea  which  is  to  elevate  mankind  from  its  rude  savagery. 
As  in  Goethe, 

Das  ewig  weibhche  zieht  uns  hinan. 

Not  a  woman,  but  the  Idea, 

Am  I,  which  heaven  did  offer 

For  man  to  study  when  seeking  things  on  high. 

Nevertheless,  we  cannot  forget  the  satirical  tone  in  which,  in 
another  poem,  he  contrasts  the  ideal  love  of  Dante  with  th^ 
passion  of  a  lower  kind  that  found  its  home  in  the  Greek 
nature,  and  sings  rather  of  Lalage  and  Lesbia  than  of  this 
"Angel  in  seeming." 

It  is  in  his  poetic  power  of  interpretation  that  here,  as  in 
the  poems  on  nature,  Carducci  proves  himself  the  true  realist. 
Whatever  form  he  chooses,  is  for  the  time  filled  with  its  own 
life,  and  speaks  from  that  and  no  other.  I  have  introduced 
the  "Hymn  to  the  Redeemer"  [XI],  that  Lauda  Spirituale, 
which  the  poet  describes  in  the  passage  from  his  autobiog- 
raphy quoted  in  the  previous  essay  as  a  youthful  literary  ex- 
periment, in  which  he  attempted  to  clothe  the  spiritual  idea 
of  the  Christ  with  the  form  of  the  pagan  triumphal  ode. 
The  heroic  picture  of  the  Redeemer  of  the  world  returning 
from  Battle  as  a  Victor  and  receiving  triumphal  honour  and 
applause,  is  novel,  and  not  without  a  high  order  of  beauty.  It 
seems,  indeed,  to  minds  trained  to  modern  religious  thought, 
more  pagan  than  Christian ;  but  one  may  question  whether 
this  aspect  of  Christ  as  the  Hero  is  not  one  which  the  Church 
has  erroneously  overlooked  in  her  tendency  to  lay  stress  on 
the  vicarious  sacrifice  of  Christ,  rather  than  on  the  actual 
deliverance  wrought  for  man  by  Him  in  His  warfare  against 
the  infernal  hosts,  setting  the  race  thereby  spiritually  free 
from  bondage.     Do  we  not  see  here  the  same  attempt  to 


54 


Giostie  Carducci 


present  the  Christian  Redemption  in  ancient  heroic  form,  as 
the  Pisan  sculptors  made  when  they  copied  from  pagan  sar- 
cophagi the  figures  of  their  apostles  and  saints?  It  was  not 
the  conventional  way;  but  we  feel  that  they  might  have 
done  worse. 

A  few  poems  from  Qrducci's  youthful  period,  in  which 
he  indulges  in  the  meaningless  melancholy,  the  passion  and 
despair,  incident  to  that  stage  of  the  poet's  growth,  I  have  in- 
troduced, as  showing  that  he  too  had  his  sentimental  side. 
in  these  he  describes  his  emotions.  They  are  the  sonnets 
from  the  Juvenilia,  beginning  respectively  with  the  follow- 
ing lines: 

O  quest!  di  prima  io  la  vidi.     Uscia.    [XXXVI] 



Non  son  quell'  io  che  gi^  d'  amiche  cene.     [XXXVII] 

Passa  la  nave  mia,  sola,  tra  il  pianto.    [XXI] 

As  such  they  are  beautiful,  but  they  lack  that  objectivity  and 
realistic  power  which  is  felt  in  those  poems  where,  as  in  life, 
the  emotion  tells  itself,  and  does  not  need  to  be  described. 

In  the  Odi  Barbate,  for  which  title  I  am  unable  to  find  a 
better  rendering  than  *'  Barbaric  Odes,"  foreign  as  it  may 
seem  to  the  character  of  these  exquisitely  finished  verses, 
1  have  followed  the  poet's  choice  in  omitting  to  capitalize 
the  initial  words  of  the  lines.  Many  of  these  poems  are 
without  rhyme,  and,  for  the  sake  of  greater  faithfulness  in 
translating  them,  I  have  sometimes  discarded  both  the  rhyme 
and  the  strict  rhythmical  form.  ^  ^ 

Washington,  D.  C,  June,  1892. 


POEMS 


ROMA 

bive  to  the  wind  thy  locks ;  all  glittering 
Thy  sea-blue  eyes,  and  thy  white  bosom  bared, 
Mount  to  thy  chariots,  while  in  speechless  roaring 
Terror  and  Force  before  thee  clear  the  way ! 

The  shadow  of  thy  helmet  like  the  flashing 
Of  brazen  star  strikes  through  the  trembling  air. 
The  dust  of  broken  empires,  cloud-like  rising, 
Follows  the  awful  rumbling  of  thy  wheels. 

So  once,  O  Rome,  beheld  the  conquered  nations 
Thy  image,  object  of  their  ancient  dread.* 
To-day  a  mitre  they  would  place  upon 


Thy  head,  and  fold  a  rosary  between 

Thy  hands.     O  name !  again  to  terrors  old 

Awake  the  tired  ages  and  the  world ! 

Decennali. 

*  The  allusion  is  to  the  figure  of  "  Roma  "  as  seen  upon  ancient  coins. 

57 


Giosue  Carducci 


59 


Like  to  pale  meteors,  or 
Planets  exhausted, 
Out  of  the  firmament 
Rain  down  the  angels. 


II 


TO  SATAN 


Here  in  the  matter 
Which  never  sleeps, 
King  of  phenomena, 
King  of  all  forms, 


To  thee  my  verses, 
Unbridled  and  daring, 
Shall  mount,  O  Satan, 
King  of  the  banquet. 

Away  with  thy  sprinkling, 
O  Priest,  and  thy  droning. 
For  never  shall  Satan, 
O  Priest,  stand  behind  thee. 

See  how  the  rust  is 
Gnawing  the  mystical 
Sword  of  St.  Michael ; 
And  how  the  faithful 

Wind-plucked  archangel 
Falls  into  emptiness! 
Frozen  the  thunder  in 
Hand  of  Jehovah. 
58 


I 


Thou,  Satan,  livest! 
Thine  is  the  empire 
Felt  in  the  dark  eyes' 
Tremulous  flashing, 

Whether  their  languishing 
Glances  resist,  or. 
Glittering  and  tearful,  they 
Call  and  invite. 

How  shine  the  clusters 
With  happy  blood. 
So  that  the  furious 
Joy  may  not  perish  ! 

So  that  the  languishing 
Love  be  restored, 
And  sorrow  be  banished 
And  love  be  increased! 


6o 


Giostd  Carducci 

Thy  breath,  O  Satan, 
My  verses  inspires 
When  from  my  bosom 
The  gods  I  defy 

Of  Kings  pontifical, 
Of  Kings  inhuman : 
Thine  is  the  lightning  that 
Sets  minds  to  shaking. 

For  thee  Arimane, 

Adonis,  Astarte ; 

For  thee  lived  the  marbles, 

The  pictures,  the  parchments. 

When  the  fair  Venus 
Anadiomene 
Blessed  the  Ionian 
Heavens  serene. 


For  thee  were  roaring  the 
Forests  of  Lebanon, 
Of  the  fair  Cyprian 
Lover  reborn ; 

For  thee  rose  the  chorus. 
For  thee  raved  the  dances, 
For  thee  the  pure  shining 
Loves  of  the  virgins, 


Giosue  Carducci 

Under  the  sweet-odoured 
Palms  of  Idume, 
Where  break  in  white  foam 
The  Cyprian  waves. 

What  if  the  barbarous 
Nazarene  fury, 
Fed  by  the  base  rites 
Of  secret  feastings, 

Lights  sacred  torches 

To  burn  down  the  temples, 

Scattering  abroad 

The  scrolls  hieroglyphic? 

In  thee  find  refuge 
The  humble-roofed  plebs, 
Who  have  not  forgotten 
The  gods  of  their  household. 

Thence  comes  the  power, 
Fervid  and  loving,  that. 
Filling  the  quick-throbbing 
Bosom  of  woman, 


6\ 


Turns  to  the  succour 
Of  nature  enfeebled, 
A  sorceress  pallid, 
With  endless  care  laden. 


62 


Giosue  Carducci 

Thou  to  the  trance-holdcn 
Eye  of  the  alchemist, 
Thou  to  the  view  of  the 
Bigoted  mago, 

Showest  the  lightning-flash 
Of  the  new  time 
Shining  behind  the  dark 
Bars  of  the  cloister. 

Seeking  to  fly  from  thee 
Here  in  the  world-life, 
Hides  him  the  gloomy  monk 
In  Theban  deserts. 

O  soul  that  wanderest 
Far  from  the  straight  way, 
Satan  is  merciful. 
See  Heloisa! 

In  vain  you  wear  yourself 
Thin  in  rough  gown;  I 
Still  murmur  the  verses 
Of  Maro  and  Flaccus 


Amid  the  Davidic 
Psalming  and  wailing; 
And—  Delphic  figures 
Close  to  thy  side  — 


Giosue  Carducci 

Rosy,  amid  the  dark 
Cowls  of  the  friars, 
Enters  Licorida, 
Enters  Glicera. 

Then  other  imager 
Of  days  more  fair 
Come  to  dwell  with  thee 
In  thy  secret  cell. 

Lo!  from  the  pages  of 
Livy,  the  Tribunes 
All  ardent,  the  Consuls, 
The  crowds  tumultuous, 

Awake;  and  the  fantastic 
Pride  of  Italian 
Drives  thee,  O  Monk, 
Up  to  the  Capitol; 

And  you,  whom  the  flaming 
Pyre  never  melted, 
Conjuring  voices, 
Wiclif  and  Huss, 


63 


Send  to  the  broad  breeze 
The  cry  of  the  watchman : 
"The  age  renews  itself; 
Full  is  the  time !  " 


H 


Giosue  Carducci 

Already  tremble 
The  mitres  and  crowns. 
Forth  from  the  cloister 
Moves  the  rebellion. 

Under  his  stole,  see, 
Fighting  and  preaching. 
Brother  Girolamo 
Savonarola. 


Off  goes  the  tunic 

Of  Martin  Luther ; 

Off  go  the  fetters 

That  bound  human  thought. 


It  flashes  and  lightens, 
Girdled  with  flame. 
Matter,  exalt  thyself  1 
Satan  has  won ! 

A  fair  and  terrible 
Monster  unchained 
G)urses  the  oceans, 
Courses  the  earth; 


Flashing  and  smoking, 
Like  the  volcanoes,  he 
Climbs  over  mountains, 
Ravages  plains, 


Giosue  Carducci 

Skims  the  abysses ; 
Then  he  is  lost 
In  unknown  caverns 
And  ways  profound, 

Till  lo !  unconquered, 
From  shore  to  shore, 
Like  to  the  whirlwind, 
He  sends  forth  his  cry. 

Like  to  the  whirlwind 
Spreading  its  wings  .  . 
He  passes,  O  people, 
Satan  the  great! 

Hail  to  thee,  Satan! 
Hail,  the  Rebellion! 
Hail,  of  the  reason  the 
Great  Vindicator! 


6!^ 


Sacred  to  thee  shall  rise 
Incense  and  vows ! 
Thou  hast  the  god 
Of  the  priests  disenthroned ! 


Ill 


HOMER 


And  from  the  savage  Urals  to  the  plain 
A  new  barbarian  folk  shall  send  alarms, 

The  coast  of  Agenorean  Thebes  again 
Be  waked  with  sound  of  chariots  and  of  arms ; 

And  Rome  shall  fall ;  and  Tiber's  current  drain 
The  nameless  lands  of  long-deserted  farms : 

But  thou,  like  Hercules,  shalt  still  remain, 
Untouched  by  fiery  Etna's  deadiy  charms ; 

And  with  thy  youthful  temples  laurel-crowned 
Shalt  rise  to  the  eternal  Form's  embrace 
Whose  unveiled  smile  all  earliest  was  thine  ; 

And  till  the  Alps  to  gulfing  sea  give  place, 

By  Latin  shore  or  on  Achaean  ground, 

Like  heaven's  sun,  shalt  thou,  O  Homer,  shine ! 

Levia  Gravu. 


66 


IV 


VIRGIL 

As  when  above  the  heated  fields  the  moon 
Hovers  to  spread  its  veil  of  summer  frost, 
The  brook  between  its  narrow  banks  half  lost 

Glitters  in  pale  light,  murmuring  its  low  tune ; 

The  nightingale  pours  forth  her  secret  boon. 
Whose  strains  the  lonely  traveller  accost ; 
He  sees  his  dear  one's  golden  tresses  tossed, 

And  time  forgets  in  love's  entrancing  swoon  ; 

And  the  orphaned  mother  who  has  grieved  in  vain 

Upon  the  tomb  looks  to  the  silent  skies 

And  feels  their  white  light  on  her  sorrow  shine ; 

Meanwhile  the  mountains  laugh,  and  the  far-off  main, 

And  through  the  lofty  trees  a  fresh  wind  sighs : 

Such  is  thy  verse  to  me.  Poet  divine  ! 

Levia  Gravia. 


«7 


Giosue  Carducci 


69 


O  dear  to  Jove  and  PhcEbus !  Sway  benignant 

Which  art  chief  guardian  of  our  cities'  peace, 

Answer  our  prayers !  and  bid  the  discord  cease 

Of  souls  malignant ! 

Juvenilia. 


INVOCATION   TO  THE  LYRE 


If  once  I  cut  thee  with  a  trembling  hand 
From  Latin  bough  to  Phoebus  that  belongs, 
So  now,  O  Lyre,  shalt  thou  rehearse  the  songs 
Of  the  Tuscan  land. 

What  consolations  fierce  to  bosoms  hard 
Of  bristling  warriors  thou  wast  wont  to  bring, 
Or  else  in  peace  the  soothing  verse  to  sing 
Of  the  Lesbian  bard  ! 

Thou  taughtest  them  of  Venus  and  of  Love, 
And  of  the  immortal  son  of  Semele, 
The  Lycian^s  hair,  the  glowing  majesty 
Of  deep-browed  Jove. 

Now,  when  I  strike,  comes  smiling  to  my  side 
The  spirit  of  Flaccus,  and  through  choirs  divine 
Of  laurelled  nymphs  that  radiant  round  me  shine. 

Calmly  I  glide. 
68 


VI 


SUN  AND  LOVE 

Fleecy  and  white  into  the  western  space 
Hurry  the  clouds;  the  wet  sky  laughs 
Over  the  market  and  streets ;  and  the  labour  of  man 
Is  hailed  by  the  sun,  benign,  triumphal. 

High  in  the  rosy  light  lifts  the  cathedral 
Its  thousand  pinnacles  white  and  its  saints  of  gold 
Flashing  forth  its  hosannas;  while  all  around 
Flutter  the  wings  and  the  notes  of  the  brown-plumed  choir. 

So  't  is  when  love  and  its  sweet  smile  dispel 
The  clouds  which  had  so  sorely  me  oppressed; 
The  sun  again  arises  in  my  soul 

With  all  life's  holiest  ideals  renewed 

And  multiplied,  the  while  each  thought  becomes 
A  harmony  and  every  sense  a  song. 

NUOVE  POBSIK. 


70 


VIl 


TO  AURORA 

Thou  risest  and  kissest,  O  Goddess,  with  rosy  breath,  the 

clouds, 
Kissest  the  dusky  pinnacles  of  marble  temples. 

The  forests  feel  thee  and  with  a  cool  shiver  awake ; 
Up  soars  the  falcon  flashing  in  eager  joy. 

Meanwhile  amid  the  wet  leaves  mutter  the  garrulous  nests, 
And  far  off  the  grey  gull  screams  over  the  purple  sea. 

First  to  delight  in  thee,  down  in  the  laborious  plain, 
Are  the  streams  which  glisten  amid  the  rustling  poplars. 

Daringly  the  sorrel  colt  breaks  away  from  his  feeding. 
Runs  to  the  brooks  with  high-lifted  mane,  neighing  in  the 
wind. 

Wakeful  answers  from  the  huts  the  great  pack  of  the  hounds, 
And  the  whole  valley  is  filled  with  the  sound  of  their  no.sy 


barking. 


7* 


72 


Giosue  Carducci 


But  the  man  whom  thou  awakest  to  life-consuming  labour. 
He,  O  ancient  Youth,  O  Youth  eternal, 

Still  thoughtful  admires  thee,  even  as  on  the  mountain 
The  Aryan  Fathers  adored  thee,  standing  amid  their  white 
oxen. 

Again  upon  the  wing  of  the  fresh  morning  flies  forth 
The  hymn  which  to  thee  they  sang  over  their  heapcd-up 
spears. 


"Shepherdess   thou   of    heaven!    from   the   stalls   of  thy 

jealous  sister 
Thou  loosest  the  rosy  kine  and  leadest  them  back  to  the 

skies : 

Thou  leadest  the  rosy  kine,  and  the  white  herds,  and  the 

horses 
With  the  blond  flowing  manes  dear  to  the  brothers  Asvini." 


Like  a  youthful  bride  who  goes  from  her  bath  to  her  spouse. 
Reflecting  in  her  eyes  the  love  of  him  her  lover, 

So  dost  thou  smiling  let  fall  the  light  garments  that  veil  thee, 
And  serene  to  the  heavens  thy  virgin  figure  reveal. 


Flushed  thy  cheeks,  with  white  breast  panting,  thou  runnest 
To  the  sovereign  of  worlds,  to  the  fair  flaming  Suria. 


Giosu^  Carducci 


75 


And  he  joins  and,  in  a  bow,  stretches  around  his  mighty 

neck 
Thy  rosy  arms :  but  at  his  terrible  glances  thou  fleest. 

'T  is  then  the  Asvinian  Twins,  the  cavaliers  of  heaven. 
Welcome  thee  rosily  trembling  in  thy  chariot  of  gold, 

And  thither  thou  turnest  where,  measured  the  road  of  glory. 
Wearied,  the  god  awaits  thee  in  the  dull  gloaming  of  eve. 

"Gracious  thy  flight  be  above  us!"  so  invoked   thee  the 

fathers, 
"Gracious  the  going  of  thy  radiant  car  over  our  houses. 

"Come  from  the  coasts  of  the  East  with  thy  good  fortune, 
Come,  with  thy  flowering  oats  and  thy  foaming  milk. 

"And  in  the  midst  of  the  calves,  dancing,  with  yellow  locks. 
An  offspring  vast  shall  adore  thee,  O  Shepherdess  of  heaven !" 

So  sang  the  Aryans.     But  better  pleased  thee  Hymettus, 
Fresh  with  the  twenty  brooks  whose  banks  smelt  to  heaven 
of  thyme ; 


Better  pleased  thee  on  Hymettus  the  nimble-limbed,  mortal 

huntsman, 
Who  with  the  buskined  foot  pressed  the  first  dews  of  the 

morn. 


74 


Giostd  Carducci 


The  heavens  bent  down.     A  sweet  blush  tinged  the  forest 

and  the  hills, 
When  thou,  O  Goddess,  didst  descend. 

But  thou  descendedst  not ;  rather  did  Cephalus,  drawn  by 

thy  kiss, 
Mount,  all  alert,  through  the  air,  fair  as  a  beautiful  god,— 

Mount  on  the  amorous  winds  and  amid  the  sweet  odours, 
While  all  around  were  the  nuptials  of  flowers  and  the  mar- 
riage  of  streams. 

Wet  lies  upon  his  neck  the  heavy  tress  of  gold  and  the 
golden  quiver 

Reaches  above  his  white  shoulder,  held  by  the  belt  of  ver- 
milion. 

O  fragrant  kisses  of  agoddess  among  the  dews! 
O  ambrosia  of  love  in  the  world's  youth-time! 

Dost  thou  also  love,  O  goddess?    But  ours  is  a  wearied  race; 
Sad  is  thy  face,  O  Aurora,  when  thou  risest  over  our  towers. 

The  dim  street-lamps  go  out ;  and  without  even  glancing  at 

thee, 
A  pale-faced  troop  go  home  imagining  they  have  been  happy. 

Angrily  at  his  door  is  pounding  the  ill-tempered  labourer, 
Cursing  the  dawn  that  only  calls  him  back  to  his  bondage. 


Giosue  Carducci 


75 


f 
J*. 


Only  the  lover,  perhaps,  fresh  from  the  dreams  of  the  loved 

one, 
His  blood  still  warm  from  her  kisses,  salutes  thee  with  joy. 


Beholds  with  delight  thy  face,  and  feels  thy  cool  breathing 

upon  him : 
Then  cries,  "  O  bear  me,  Aurora,  upon  thy  swift  courser  of 

flamC; — 

"Bear  me  up  into  the  fields  of  the  stars,  that  there,  looking 

down, 
I  may  behold  the  earth  beneath  thy  rosy  light  smiling,— 

**  Behold  my  fair  one  in  the  face  of  the  rising  day, 

Let  fall  her  black  tresses  down  over  her  blushing  bosom." 

Odi  Barbark. 


VIll 


RUIT   HORA 

O  green  and  silent  solitudes  far  from  the  rumours  of  men! 
Hither  come  to  meet  us  true  friends  divine,  O  Lidia, 
Wine  and  love. 

O  tell  me  why  the  sea  far  under  the  flaming  Hesperus 
Sends  such  mysterious  meanings;  and  what  songs  are  these, 

O  Lidia, 

The  pines  are  chanting? 

See  with  what  longing  the  hills  stretch  their  arms  to  the 

setting  sun ! 
The  shadow  lengthens  and  holds  them;  they  seem  to  be 

asking 

A  last  kiss,  O  Lidia! 

Odi  Barbarb. 


76 


IX 


y 


THE  OX 


T'amo,  pio  hove 


I  love  thee,  pious  ox;  a  gentle  feeling 
Of  vigour  and  of  peace  thou  giv'st  my  heart. 
How  solemn,  like  a  monument,  thou  art! 
Over  wide  fertile  fields  thy  calm  gaze  stealing. 
Unto  the  yoke  with  grave  contentment  kneeling, 
To  man's  quick  work  thou  dost  thy  strength  impart. 
He  shouts  and  goads,  and  answering  thy  smart, 
Thou  turn'st  on  him  thy  patient  eyes  appealing. 

From  thy  broad  nostrils,  black  and  wet,  arise 

Thy  breath's  soft  fumes;  and  on  the  still  air  swells,  ' 

Like  happy  hymn,  thy  lowing's  mellow  strain. 

In  the  grave  sweetness  of  thy  tranquil  eyes 

Of  emerald,  broad  and  still  reflected  dwells 

All  the  divine  green  silence  of  the  plain. 


TO  PHCEBUS  APOLLO 


The  sovereign  driver 

Of  the  ethereal  chariot 

Whips  the  fiery  wing-footed  steeds- 

A  Titan  most  beautiful. 


From  the  Thessalian  valley, 
From  the  /Egean  shores, 
The  vision  divine  of  the  prophets 
Hellenic  saw  thee  arise, 

The  youthful  god  most  fair; 
Rising  through  the  deserted  skies, 
Thy  feet  had  wings  of  fire, 
Thy  chariot  was  a  flame, 


And  around  thee  danced 
In  the  sphere  serene 
The  twenty-four  virgins, 
In  colours  tawny  and  bright. 

78 


Giosue  Cat  due  ct 

Didst  thou  not  live?     Did  the 
Maeonian  verse  never  reach  thee? 
And  did  Proclus  in  vain  call  thee 
The  Love  of  the  universe? 

The  inexorable  truth 
With  its  cold  shadow  covered 
Thee,  the  phantom  of  ages  past, 
Hellas'  god  and  mine. 

Now,  where  is  the  chariot  and  the  golden, 
Radiant  brow  of  youth  ? 
An  unsightly  mouldering  heap 
Gloomily  flashing  remains. 

Alas,  from  the  Ausonian  lands 
All  the  gods  are  flown! 
In  a  vast  solitude 
Thou  remainest,  my  Muse. 

In  vain,  O  Ionian  virgin, 

Thy  songs  and  thy  calling  on  Homer; 

Truth,  the  sallow-faced,  rises 

From  her  deserts  and  threatens. 


79 


Farewell,  O  Titan  Apollo, 
Who  governed  the  rolling  year ; 
Alone  is  left  to  lead  me 
Love,  the  last  delusion. 


8o 


Giosue  Carducci 

Let  us  go :  in  the  acts  and  the  smiles 
Of  my  Delia  still  do  the  Graces 
Reveal  themselves,  as  of  old 
Cephisus  beheld  them. 


Perish  the  sober  age 
That  quenches  the  life  in  mc, 
That  freezes  in  souls  Phoebean 
The  Hellenic  song! 


Juvenilia. 


XI 


HYMN  TO  THE  REDEEMER 

{For  the  Feast  of  Corpus  Domini) 

Open,  O  human  race, 

Open  wide  the  gates! 
Behold  there  comes  to  you  a  mighty  One, 
Who  brings  you  glory  and  has  conquered  death. 


Before  Him  let  no  sound  of  fear  arise, 
No  sad  complaints  from  dolorous  companies. 
All  nature  makes  a  feast  as  if  to  adorn 
Herself,  in  presence  of  the  coming  Spouse. 
Bring  then,  O  Children,  scatter  in  the  way 
The  immortal  laurel  and  the  blushing  rose 
With  the  pure  whiteness  of  the  jessamine. 

Behold  He  comes,  the  mighty  King  encrowned 
With  victory's  trophies  hither  to  your  midst. 
Before  His  face  fly  Death  and  Sin  away, 
While  Peace  and  Health  move  at  His  either  side. 
6  8i 


gj  Giosue  Carducci 

Behold  the  Lord  who  of  rebellious  man 

Suffered  Himself  the  doom 
And  payed  our  ransom  with  His  own  heart's  blood. 

He  made  Himself  the  fellow  of  our  grief, 
He  bore  our  burden  and  endured  our  shame. 
Black  over  Him  did  fall  the  shadow  of  death. 
Nor  turned  the  Father  to  His  cry  the  face  — 
That  day  when,  seeing  again  the  sacred  Mount, 

Gime  from  their  tombs 
The  prophets  and  the  saints  of  Israel ! 

Behold  the  Isaac  of  the  ancient  time, 

Who  bends  beneath  the  sword  his  gentle  neck 

And  looks  upon  his  slayer  with  a  smile, 

Kneeling  to  him  in  all  humility. 

No  pity  for  the  blooming  flower  of  youth ; 

None  for  that  bitter  end, 
Nor  for  the  robbed  embraces  of  the  mother. 


And  now,  His  death  forever  witnessing, 
He  brings  with  Him  Divine  Humanity, 
Irradiating  all  the  earth  with  joy 
As  when  the  sun  dispels  the  gloomy  cloud ; 
And  all  the  abodes  of  woe  and  that  dark  land 

Where  dwelt  the  shadow  of  death 
He  comforts  with  His  presence  all  divine. 


Giosue  Carducci  83 

To  Him  upon  His  throne  of  victory 

Be  lifted  up  the  gaze  of  every  art, 

Whom  glory  like  a  cloud  doth  gird  around 

And  love  angelical  encompasseth. 

Fly  thither  from  the  world  where  grief  still  sighs, 

Where  death  still  bides  and  reigns. 
Fly,  O  my  song,  to  Him  who  thee  deserves, 

And  there  relate  the  sorrows  of  His  people 
Who,  from  the  good  astray,  still  seek  the  good. 
Like  hart  that  panteth  for  the  cooling  stream, 
Or  bird  imprisoned  for  its  native  air: 
He  from  the  sphere  divine  wherein  He  dwells 

May  send  a  ray  benign 
To  souls  perplexed  and  lost  in  their  life's  way. 


Lift,  O  human  race, 

Lift  up  your  minds 
And  chastened  hearts  to  this  most  clement  King, 
Who  welcomes  those  who  turn  to  Him  in  faith ! 

JUVENIUA. 


XII 


OUTSIDE  THE  CERTOSA 

The  dead  are  saying:   "  Blessed  are  ye  who  walk  along  the 

hillsides 
Flooded  with  the  warm  rays  of  the  golden  sun. 

"Cool  murmur  the  waters  through  flowery  slopes  descending. 
Singing  are  the  birds  to  the  verdure,  singing  the  leaves  to  the 
wind. 

"For  you  are  smiling  the  flowers  ever  new  on  the  earth; 
For  you  smile  the  stars,  the  flowers  eternal  of  heaven." 

The  dead  are  saying:    "Gather  the  flowers,  for  they  too 

pass  away ; 
Adore  the  stars,  for  they  pass  never  away. 


"Rotted  away  are  the  garlands  that  lay  around  our  damp 

skulls. 
Roses  place  ye  around  the  tresses  golden  and  black. 


I" 


"Down  here  it  is  cold.    We  are  alone.    Oh,  love  ye  the  sun  I 

Shine,  constant  star  of  Love,  on  the  life  which  passes  away! 

Odi  Barbare 

84 


XIII 
DANTE 

O  Dante,  why  is  it  that  I  adoring 

Still  lift  my  songs  and  vows  to  thy  stern  face, 
And  sunset  to  the  morning  grey  gives  place 

To  find  me  still  thy  restless  verse  exploring? 

Lucia  prays  not  for  my  poor  soul's  resting ; 

For  me  Matilda  tends  no  sacred  fount ; 

For  me  in  vain  the  sacred  lovers  mount, 
O'er  star  and  star  to  the  eternal  soaring. 

I  hate  the  Holy  Empire,  and  the  crown 
And  sword  alike  relentless  would  have  riven 
From  thy  good  Frederic  on  Olona's  plains. 

Empire  and  Church  to  ruin  have  gone  down. 
And  yet  for  them  thy  songs  did  scale  high  heaven. 
Great  Jove  is  dead.     Only  the  song  remains. 

Levia  Gravia. 


85 


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87 


'T  is  Lidia,  and  she  turns,  and,  slowly  turning, 
Her  tresses  full  of  light  reveal  themselves, 
And  love  is  shining  from  a  pale  shy  face 
Behind  the  veil. 


XIV 

IN   A  GOTHIC  CHURCH 

They  rise  aloft,  marching  in  awful  file, 
The  polished  shafts  immense  of  marble  grey, 
And  in  the  sacred  darkness  seem  to  be 
An  army  of  giants 

Who  wage  a  war  with  the  invisible; 
The  silent  arches  soar  and  spring  apart 
In  distant  flight,  then  re-embrace  again 
And  droop  on  high. 

So  in  the  discord  of  unhappy  men, 
From  out  their  barbarous  tumult  there  go  up 
To  God  the  sighs  of  solitary  souls 
In  Him  united. 


Of  you  I  ask  no  God,  ye  marble  shafts, 
Ye  airy  vaults  !    1  tremble  —  but  1  watch 
To  hear  a  dainty  well-known  footstep  waken 
The  solemn  echoes. 
86 


XV 


INNANZI,   INNANZI! 


On,  on !  through  dusky  shadows  up  the  hill 
Stretches  the  shining  level  of  the  snow, 
Which  yields  and  creaks  each  laboured  step  1  go, 

My  breath  preceding  in  a  vapour  chill. 

Now  silent  all.     There  where  the  clouds  stand  still 
The  moon  leaps  forth  into  the  blank,  to  throw 
An  awful  shadow,  a  gaunt  pine  below, 

Of  branches  crossed  and  bent  in  manner  ill. 

They  seem  like  the  uneasy  thought  of  death. 
O  Winter  vast,  embrace  me  and  quick  stay 
In  icy  hold  my  heart's  tempestuous  waves! 
For  yet  that  thought,  shipwrecked,  again  draws  breath, 
And  cries  to  heaven  :  O  Night,  O  Winter,  say. 

What  are  the  dead  doing  down  there  in  their  graves? 


oo 


XVI 


SERMIONE 

"  Peninsularum,  Sinnio,  insularumque 
OccUe."— Catullus. 


See  how  green  Sermio  laughs  in  the  lake's  lucid  waters, 
she  the  peninsula's  flower! 

The  Sun  pours  down  his  caresses,  while,  all  around,  the  Benaco 
shines  like  a  great  silver  cup 

along  whose  rim  is  entwined  a  wreath  of  peaceful  olive 
mixed  with  the  laurel  eternal ; 

and  so  the  radiant  goblet  Italia  the  Mother  holds  forth 
with  lofty  arms  to  the  gods; 

and  they  from  the  skies  have  let  thee  fall  in,  O  Sermio, 
thee,  the  peninsular  jewel! 

Above,  the  paternal  mountain  boldly  stands  guard  o'er  thy 

beauty, 

watching  with  gloomy  eyebrow. 

89 


90 


Giosue  Carducci 


Giosue  Carducci 


9« 


Beneath  lies  the  land  like  a  Titan  slain  in  some  desperate 

battle, 
prostrate,  but  threatening  revenge. 

But  along  the  curved  shores  of  the  bay  at  the  left  of  the 

mountain 
stretch  out  the  fair  white  arms 

like  unto  those  of  a  child  who,  happy  on  entering  the  dance, 
throws  to  the  breeze  her  hair, 

laughs,  and  with  generous  hand  deals  out  her  flowers  right 

and  left, 
and  crowns  the  chief  youth  with  her  garland. 

Garda  there,  far  below,  lifts  up  her  dusky  shoulders 
over  the  liquid  mirror, 

singing  the  while  a  saga  of  cities  ancient  and  buried, 
and  their  barbaric  kings. 

But  here,  O  Lalage,  whence,  through  the  holy  joys  of  the 

azure, 
thou  sendest  thy  soul-glance; 

here  Valerius  Catullus  moored  to  the  wet  rocks,  of  old, 
his  frail  pitched  canoe, 


sat  through  the  long  days  and  watched  in  the  waves,  phos- 
phorescent and  tremulous, 
the  eyes  of  his  Lesbia ; 

yea,  and  saw  in  those  waves  the  changing  moods  of  his 

Lesbia, 
saw  her  perfidious  smile, 

the  while  she  beguiled  with  her  charms,  through  darksome 

haunts  of  the  town, 
the  princely  nephews  of  Romulus. 

To  him  from  the  humid  depths  sang  forth  the  nymph  of  the 

lake, 
*'Come  to  us,  Quintus  Valerius! 

**  Here  to  our  grottoes  descend  still  the  sun  rays,  but  silvery 
and  mild  as  those  of  Cynthia. 

**  Here  the  assiduous  tumults  that  burden  thy  life  but  resemble 
the  distant  humming  of  bees, 

"and,  in  the  silence  cool,  thy  cares,  all  frenzied  and  fearful, 
gently  fade  into  oblivion. 

"Here  the  fresh  air,  here  the  sleep,  the  soothing  music  and 

chorus 
of  the  cerulean  virgins, 


IIIIIR 


w* 


Giosue  Carducci 


"while  Hesperus  over  the  waters  broadens  his  rosy  face, 
and  the  waves  are  lapping  the  shore." 

Alas  for  sad  Love!  how  the  Muses  he  hates;  how  the  poet 

he  shatters 
with  lust,  or  with  jealousy  kills! 

But  who  from  thine  eyes  and  the  wars  they  are  plotting  afar, 
O  Lalage,  who  shall  protect? 

Pluck  for  the  Muses  three  boughs  of  sacred  laurel  and  myrtle, 
wave  them  in  sunlight  eternal ! 

Scest  thou  not  from  Peschiera  how  the  flocks  of  white  swans 

are  swimming 
down  through  the  silvery  Mincio? 

Dost  thou  not  hear  from   the  green  pastures  where  sleeps 

Bianore 
the  sound  of  Virgilius'  voice? 

O  Lalage ,  turn  and  adore !    From  yonder  tower  of  the  Scaligcrs 
looks  out  a  face  stern  and  grand. 

'*  Suso  in  Italia  bella,"  smiling  he  murmurs,  and  looks 

at  the  water,  the  earth,  and  the  sky. 

Odi  Barbarb. 


XVII 
TO  A  HORSE 

Hail  to  thee,  valiant  steed!     To  thee  the  palm, 
To  thee  its  wild  applause  the  ring  is  raising. 

Who  slanders  thee  sings  an  ignoble  psalm, 

In  vain  his  own  poor  wit  and  judgment  praising. 

Thy  body,  fair  as  with  no  shining  balm, 
But  with  the  spirit's  inward  ardour  blazing. 

Speeds  to  the  prize.     Then  in  what  beauty  calm 
Dost  thou  stand  still,  upon  thy  rivals  gazing! 

Thou  wouldst  have  been  among  the  conquering 

To  gain  for  brave  Automedon  the  paean 
That  once  from  Grecian  lips  did  joyous  ring! 

O,  that  for  thee  might  blaze  the  sands  Elean, 
For  thee  great  hymns  the  godlike  Pindar  sing, 
Following  thee  there  upon  the  waves  Alphaean ! 

JUVENIUA. 


9> 


XVIII 
A  DREAM  IN  SUMMER 

In  the   midst  of  thy  song,  O  Homer,  with  battles  ever 

resounding, 
the  midsummer  heat  overcame  me;  my  head  fell  asleep 
there  on  Scamander's  bank ;  but  my  heart  fled  at  once, 
as  soon  as  set  free,  back  again  to  the  shore  of  Tyrrhenia. 


I  dreamed  — dreamed   pleasant   things   of   the    new   years 

coming  to  me, 
of  books  no  more !    My  chamber,  stifled  with  the  heat  of 

the  July  sun, 
and  noisy  with  the  endless  rolling  of  carriages  in  the  streets, 
opened  wide.     I  dreamed  myself  among  my  hills,— 
the  dear  forest  hills  which   an   April-time  youth  was  re- 
flowering. 
A  stream  gushed  down  the  hillside,  widening  into  a  brook 
with  murmuring  cool,  and  along  the  brook  wandered  my 

mother, 
still  in  the  flower  of  her  youth,  and  leading  a  child  by  the 

hand. 

94 


Giosue  Carducci 


95 


On  his  bare  white  shoulder  lay  shining  his  golden  curls. 

He  walked  with  a  childish  step,  but  stately,  too, 

proud  of  the  mother's  love,  and  thrilled  to  the  heart 

with  the  great  gladness  of  that  Festival 

which  everywhere  sweet  Nature  was  intoning. 

For  high  up  in  yon  tower  the  bells  were  telling 

that  on  the  morrow  Christ  would  rise  again ! 

And  over  the  hills  and  vales,  through  air  and  boughs  and 

streams, 
flowed  everywhere  the  great  Hymn  of  the  Spring. 
The  apple-trees  and  the  peach-trees  were  blossoming  white 

and  red, 
underneath  laughed  the  meadow  with  yellow  flowers  and 

blue  ; 
the   red    trefoil   was  clambering  up  to  cover  the  sloping 

fields, 
and  beyond  the  hills  lay  veiled  in  the  glow  of  the  golden 

broom. 
From  the  sea  below  came  up  an  odorous  breeze ; 
on  its  waters  four  white  sails  rocked  slowly  to  and  fro  in 

the  sun, 
whose  dazzling  rays  were  quivering  over  sea  and  land  and 

sky. 
1  watched  the  happy  mother  walking  in  the  sunlight ; 
I  watched  the  mother  :    thoughtful  I  watched  my  brother, 
him  who  now  lies  at  rest  on  the  flowering  banks  of  the 

Arno, 
while    she    is    sleeping    alone    in    the    solemn    shade    of 

Certosa. 


96 


Giosue  Carducci 


Thoughtful  I  gazed,  and  wondered  if  still  they  live, 

and,  mindful  of  my  grief,  come  back  from  where 

their  happy  years  glide  on  'mid  forms  well  known. 

So  passed  the  vision  blessed ;  quick  with  my  nap  it  went— 

Lauretta's  joyous  song  was  ringing  through  all  the  chambers, 
and  Bice,  bending  over  her  frame,  followed  silent  the  work 

of  the  needle. 

Odi  Barbarb. 


XIX 


ON  A  SAINT  PETER'S  EVE 


I  remember  the  sun  across  the  red  vapours  descending, 
and  falling  into  the  sea  like  a  great  shield  of  brass, 
which  shines  wavering  over  the  bloody  field  of  war, 
then  drops  and  is  seen  no  more. 
Little  Castiglioncello,  high  amid  heaps  of  oaks, 
blushing  in  her  glazed  windows,  returned  a  coquettish  smile. 
I,  meanwhile,  languid  and  sad  [with  fever  still  lingering  in  me, 
and  my  nerves  all  heavy  and  lifeless  as  if  they  were  weighted 

with  lead], 
looked  from  my  window.     Swiftly  the  swallows 
wove  and  rewove  their  crooked  flight  around  the  eaves, 
while    in    shadows    malarious   the   brown    sparrows  were 

chattering. 
Beyond  the  wood  were  the  varied  hills  and  the  plain 
partly  razed  by  the  scythe,  partly  still  yellow  and  waving. 
Away  through  the   grey  furrows   rose  the   smoke  of  the 

smouldering  stubble, 
and  whether  or  no  did  there  come  through  the  humid  air 
the  song  of  the  reapers,  long,  distant,  mournful,  and  wearied  ? 
Everywhere  brooded  a  heaviness,  in  the  air,  in  the  woods, 

on  the  shore. 

7  97 


98 


Ciosui  Carducci 


I  gazed  at  the  falling  sun  — "Proud  light  of  the  world, 
Like  a  Cyclops  heavy  with  wine  thou  lookest  down  on  our 

life"  — 
Then  screamed  the  peacocks,  mocking  me  from  among  the 

pomegranates, 
and  a  vagrant  bat  as  it  passed  me  grazed  my  head. 

Odi  Barbarb. 


XX 


THE  MOTHER 

[a   group   by    ADRIAN    CECIONi] 

Surely  admired  her  the  rosy  day-dawn  when, 
summoning  the  farmers  to  the  still  grey  fields, 
it  saw  her  barefooted,  with  quick  step  passing 
among  the  dewy  odours  of  the  hay. 

Heard  her  at  midday  the  elm-trees  white  with  dust, 
as,  with  broad  shoulders  bent  o'er  the  yellow  winrows, 
she  challenges  in  cheery  song  the  grasshoppers 
whose  hoarse  chirping  rings  from  the  hot  hillsides. 

And  when  from  her  toil  she  lifted  her  turgid  bosom, 
her  sunbrowned  face  with  glossy  curls  surrounded, 
how,  then,  thy  vesper  fires,  O  Tuscany, 
did  richly  tinge  with  colour  her  bold  figure! 

»T  is  then  the  strong  mother  plays  at  ball  with  her  infant, 
the  lusty  child  whom  her  naked  breasts  have  just  sated : 
tosses  him  on  high  and  prattles  sweetly  with  him, 
while  he,  with  eye  fixed  on  the  shining  eyes  of  his  mother, 

99 


lOO 


Giosue  Carducct 


his  little  body  trembling  all  over  with  fear,  holds  out 
his  tiny  fingers  imploring;  then  loud  laughs  the  mother, 
and  into  the  one  great  embrace  of  love 
lets  him  fall  clasped  close  to  her  bosom. 

Around  her  smiles  the  scene  of  homely  labor; 

tremulous  nod  the  oats  on  the  green  hillsides; 

one  hears  the  distant  mooing  of  the  ox, 

and  on  the  barn  roof  the  gay  plumed  cock  is  crowing. 


Nature  has  her  brave  ones  who  for  her  despise 
the  masks  of  glory  dear  to  the  vulgar  throng. 
'T  is  thus,  O  Adrian,  with  holy  visions 
thou  comfortest  the  souls  of  fellow-men. 

»T  is  thus,  O  artist,  with  thy  blow  severe 
thou  putt'st  in  stone  the  ages'  ancient  hope, 
the  lofty  hope  that  cries,  "O  when  shall  labor 
be  happy?  and  faithful  love  secure  from  harm?" 

When  shall  a  mighty  nation  of  freemen 
say  in  the  face  of  the  sun:  ** Shine  no  more 
on  the  idle  ease  and  the  selfish  wars  of  tyrants; 
but  on  the  pious  justice  of  labour"—? 

Odi  Barbarb. 


XXI 

"  Passa  la  nave  mia,  sola,  tra  il  pianto" 

My  lonely  bark  beneath  the  seagull's  screaming 
Pursues  her  way  across  the  stormy  sea; 
Around  her  mingle,  in  tumultuous  glee, 

The  roar  of  waters  and  the  lightning's  gleaming. 

And  memory,  down  whose  face  the  tears  are  streaming, 
Looks  for  the  shore  it  can  no  longer  see; 
While  hope,  that  struggled  long  and  wearily 

With  broken  oar,  at  last  gives  up  its  dreaming. 

Still  at  the  helm  erect  my  spirit  stands, 
Gazing  at  sea  and  sky,  and  bravely  crying 

Amid  the  howling  winds  and  groaning  strands : 
Sail  on,  sail  on,  O  crew,  all  fates  defying, 

Till  at  the  gate  of  dark  oblivion's  lands 
We  see  afar  the  white  shores  of  the  dying. 

JUVENIUA. 


10! 


XXll 
CARNIVAL 

VOICE   FROM  THE   PALACE 

Couldst  thou,  O  north  wind,  coming 

From  the  deep  bosom  of  the  moaning  valley, 

Or,  wandering  in  the  aisles  of  songful  pines, 

Or  through  a  lonely  cloister's  corridors, 

Chant  to  me  in  a  thousand  sounds  — 

The  piping  of  reeds,  the  roaring  of  wild  beasts, 

And  cries  of  human  woe ! 

That  would  be  my  delight,  the  while  I  know 
On  yon  cold  height  there  lies  the  winter's  snow. 


A  shower  of  white  darkness 

Fills  all  the  sleepy  air ;    the  snowy  plain 

Fades  into  the  horizon  far  away. 

Meanwhile,  the  sun»s  great  disk  grows  faintly  red 

As  wearily  it  sinks  behind  the  clouds, 

Staring  as  't  were  a  lidless  human  eye. 
No  breeze,  no  breath  among  the  hills  is  stirred, 
Nor  traveller's  voice,  nor  song  of  children  heard. 


102 


Giosue  Carducci  loy 

But  the  loud  crash  of  branches 
Too  heavily  bent  by  burden  of  the  snow. 
And  sharp  explosions  of  the  cracking  ice, 
Arcadia  sing  and  Zephyrus  invite 
To  your  sweet  company  in  meadows  fair- 
Now  nature's  mute  and  haughty  horror  doth 
Add  zest  to  pleasure !    Come,  Eurilla,  make 
The  drowsy  coals  a  livelier  sparkle  take ! 

On  me  let  them  be  casting 

A  light  serenely  flashing,  such  as  spring 

Doth  carry  with  her  wheresoever  she  goeth. 

The  mouthing  actor 

No  more  the  boxes  heed,  when  'mid  the  sight 

Of  all  that  crowded  brilliancy  and  beauty, 

And  perfumed  tresses,  and  enwreathed  flowers, 
There  comes  the  scent  of  April's  fruitful  showers. 


VOICE    FROM    THE    HOVEL 

O  if,  with  living  blood 

From  my  heart  streaming,  I  could  thee  restore, 
Poor,  frozen  body  of  my  little  son ! 
But  my  heart  dies  within  me, 
And  feeble  is  the  hold  of  my  embraces. 
And  man  is  deaf  and  God  above  too  high. 
Lay,  my  poor  little  one,  thy  tear-wet  cheek 
Close  to  thy  mother's  whilst  I  with  thee  speak. 


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Giosue  Carducci 

Not  so  thy  brother  lay; 
Hardly  he  drew  amid  the  stifling  snow 
His  failing  breath,  as  on  his  way  he  crept. 
After  the  toilsome  day, 
Beneath  a  heavy  load,  his  little  steps 
Failed  to  keep  even  pace  with  th'  hurrying  men, 
While  the  rough  path  and  the  night's  stormy  frown 
Conspired  with  man  to  drag  his  courage  down. 


The  gusts  of  whirling  snow 

Beat  through  his  ragged  clothes,  his  wearied  limbs. 

He  falls,  and,  bleeding,  tries  to  lift  himself, 

But  't  is  in  vain  ;  and  hunger 

Now  drains  his  little  strength,  and  at  the  end 

Of  the  dolorous  way  he  gives  the  struggle  over; 

Then  pious  Death  comes  down  and  looks  upon 
The  bruised  form  ;  and  from  its  grave  of  snow 
Home  to  the  mother's  roof  they  bring  it  so. 


Alas!    with  better  reason 

The  eagle  flies  for  refuge  from  the  blast 

Unto  her  eyrie  on  the  jagged  cliff, 

And  the  aged  beast  to  his  cave. 

A  kennel  warm  protects  the  mastiff's  sleep, 

Full  fed,  within  the  palace  there,  near  by 
To  where,  O  child,  born  of  love's  mightier  breath, 
An  icy  hand  leads  thee  away  to  death. 


Giosue  Carducci 


105 


VOICE    FROM    THE    BANQUET 

Pour !  and  keep  on  pouring. 

The  vintage  which  the  ancient  Rhine  doth  yield. 

Crowned  with  her  hundred  castles ! 

Let  it  foam  and  bubble 

Forth  to  our  sight,  and  then  deep  in  the  breast 

Tell  what  rare  treasure  hath  the  sun  matured 
Within  the  hills  which  well  may  England  crave, 
And  France,  land  of  good  wines  and  heroes  brave  ! 

Then  let  the  maddening  dance 
Whirl  thee  away !     O  what  a  waving  sea 
Of  tresses  blond  and  dark  all  proudly  blending ! 
O  the  hot  breath  that  mingles 
Itself  with  thine  !    O  roses  quickly  faded  ! 
O  eyes  that  know  to  exchange  the  hasty  flash 
The  while,  of  a  thousand  mingled  notes  the  strain 
Pours  forth  the  sigh  of  pleasure  acute  to  pain ! 


O  sweet  deflowering 

Of  burning  cheeks,  and  pressure  of  hand  in  hand. 
The  hurried  beating  of  the  breast  near  breast, 
The  cunning  strategy. 

Now  in  the  ear  to  lodge  the  precious  secret, 
The  little  parleys  carried  on  by  smiles, 
The  sweet  imagining  of  joys  that  hide 
'Neath  her  shy  glance  one  presses  at  his  side. 


io6  Giosue  Carducci 

See  how  from  these  our  feasts 
The  common  people  get  the  benefit, 
And  civil  charity  finds  large  increase! 
Thanks  to  the  heavenly  power 
That  ill  and  good  allots,  a  judgment  stem 
Has  easement  in  a  graceful  piety; 
And  we  the  happy  progeny  of  mirth, 
Shed  like  the  sun  a  radiance  o'er  the  earth ! 


VOICE  FROM^  THE  GARRET. 

The  bread  gave  out,  the  work 
Fell  off  on  which  did  hang  our  life. 
And  trembling  sat  before  the  fireless  hearth 
My  mother,  and  watched  me. 
Pale  was  the  face  and  mute  with  some  great  fear 
The  while  she  watched:  until,  as  if  pursued 
By  that  mute  stare,  after  the  long,  long  day 
I  could  endure  no  more,  and  stole  away. 


Down  through  the  winter's  mist 
Poured  the  high  moon  a  livid  radiance 
Above  the  muddy  alley,  then  disappeared 
Behind  the  clouds.     So  did 
The  light  of  youth  but  shine  to  disappear 
Upon  the  sorrow-mingled  pathway  of  my  life. 
A  hand  touched  me.    1  felt  a  foul  glance  fall 
Upon  me,  and  words  that  did  my  heart  appal. 


Giosue  Carducci 


107 


Appal !  but  more  appalling 

The  hunger,  O  ye  proud  ones,  that  did  drive  me. 

And  the  old  mother's  mute  and  maddening  stare! 

And  so  it  came  that  1  took  bread  to  her ! 

But  all  desire  for  me  her  fast  had  stilled. 

Hardly  on  me  she  raised  her  heavy  eyes. 
While  I  on  my  poor  mother's  breast  would  claim 
A  place  where  1  might  hide  my  face  and  shame. 

Adieu,  O  tearful  visions 

Of  a  once  holy  love  and  you,  the  fond 

Companions  of  a  maiden  most  unhappy! 

For  you  may  shine  the  whiteness 

Of  that  pure  veil  the  mother,  weeping,  binds! 

For  you  the  thought  that  to  the  cradle  turns;— 
1,  to  my  sin  abandoned,  keep  me  near 
The  track  of  darkness  and,  so,  disappear. 


VOICE  FROM  jBENEATH. 

Be  still,  thou  maiden  sad, 

Be  still,  O  grieving  mother,  and  thou,  child. 

Found  starving,  when  shut  down  the  night's  great  gloom! 

Behold!  what  festive  lights 

Gleam  in  the  palace  windows,  where  unite 

The  ruling  orders  of  our  favoured  land. 
And  magistrates  and  soldiers  of  renown. 
And  doctors,  mix  with  merchants  of  the  town. 


Giosue  Carducci 


The  bloom  of  thy  best  years 

Thou  spoilest,  girl,  while  thou  dost  pine  in  vain 

For  that  sweet  love  and  life  that  all  desire. 

Laugh  rather,  and  be  gay, 

In  dazzling  robes  of  silk  and  gold  held  up 

By  hand  fair  as  a  countess's,  while  you  haste 

To  join  the  dance!     Then  weep  and  wait— what  for? 

The  garb  of  shame  that  's  waiting  at  thy  door  I 


As  if  the  tears  had  frozen 

Between  the  eyelids  of  the  dying  boy 

Whom  thou  couldst  not  revive,  O  wretched  mother, 

And  turned  to  precious  gems, 

So  shines  the  fillet  in  the  dame's  black  hair, 

With  whom  the  economist,  gallant  and  suave, 
Holds  speech!     His  lips  a  smile  do  wear, 
As  if  a  kiss  each  honied  word  did  bear. 


Seize  and  enjoy  your  triumph, 

O  Masks!  so  happy  and  so  powerful. 

And  when  the  coming  dawn  drives  folk  to  work, 

Go  out  and  show  yourselves, 

Belching  your  ill-digested  orgies  forth; 

Flaunting  your  pomp  before  their  humble  fast; 

Nor  dream  the  day  when,  at  your  gilded  gate, 

Grim  Hunger  and  his  brother  Death  shall  wait. 

Levia  Gravia. 


XXI II 
F.  PETRARCA 

If  far  from  turbid  thoughts  and  gloomy  mood 
Some  smiling  day  should  see  my  wish  fulfilled 
Where  breathe  the  vales  with  gentle  brooks  enrilled 

The  soft  air  of  my  Tuscan  neighbourhood. 

There,  where  is  heard  no  more  the  garrulous  brood 
Of  thoughtless  minds,  in  deep  oblivion  stilled. 
Would  1  to  thee  my  heart's  pure  altar  build 

In  the  green  blackness  of  the  tangled  wood. 

There  with  the  dying  splendours  of  the  sun 

Thy  song  should  glow  amid  the  flowers  springing 

On  breezy  banks  where  whispering  streams  do  run; 
As  if,  still  sweeter  sounds  and  odours  flinging 

Upward  to  heaven  when  the  day  is  done, 

A  nightingale  from  bough  to  bough  were  singing. 

Levia  Gravia. 


109 


XXIV 


CARLO  GOLDONI 


O  Terence  of  the  Adria,  to  whose  pen 
Italia's  land  did  give  such  vengeful  power 
That,  as  from  rebel  soil  a  noble  flower, 

So  rose  alive  the  Latin  soul  again. 


See!  where  should  rule  a  race  of  noble  men, 
Sharing  in  righteous  deal  their  bounteous  dower, 
There  art,  beshadowed  with  base  passion's  glower, 

Goes  reeling  to  the  jeering  harlot's  den! 

Laugh!  and  drive  out  these  Goths,  and  of  their  shame 
Tear  down  the  altars,  and  to  the  muse  impart 
The  laurel  crown  the  ancients  loved  to  view. 

But  no!  To-day  thou  hast  no  dower  but  blame; 
And  the  base  crowd  proclaims  in  vileness  new 
How  low  has  fallen  our  Italian  art! 

Juvenilia. 


110 


XXV 
VITTORIO  ALFIERl 

"O  de  ritalo  agon  supremo  atleta" 

O  supreme  wrestler  on  Italia's  plains! 
See  how  a  race  grown  feeble  and  despairing, 
Even  from  thee  the  sacred  laurel  tearing, 

The  rising  of  thy  holy  wrath  restrains! 

To  what  high  prize  thou  hold'st  the  guiding  reins. 
Whither  aloft  the  stars  with  thee  are  faring, 
The  while  the  age,  to  its  vile  feasts  repairing. 

Each  day  tastes  viands  new  and  still  complains. 

"Ungrateful  world,  O  son;  and  made  still  worse 

By  listless  souls  who  on  their  way  proceed 

With  neither  word  of  chiding  nor  of  praising. 

And  where  to  evil  thought  is  linked  the  curse 

Of  instincts  vile,  what  heart  or  mind  can  read 

Those   distant    heights    on    which    my  soul  is 

gazing ! " 

Juvenilia. 


Ill 


XXVI 
VINCENZO  MONTI 

When  burst  thy  rapid  songs  from  out  a  brain 
A  god  had  struck,  his  ready  kindred  knowing, 

In  mighty  flood  like  that  which  from  the  plain 
Of  Eridanus  to  the  sea  is  going, 

Then  rose  the  immortal  siren  whose  domain 
Holds  Virgil's  ashes,  and  her  breath  bestowing 

As  from  an  ancient  urn  disturbed  again, 

Sweet  harmonies  as  of  lyres  and  reeds  were  flowing. 


Along  the  circling  shores  its  measures  flinging 
Came  as  of  bees  hid  in  Ravenna's  gloom 

The  Tuscan  verse  of  Dante  softly  ringing ; 
The  Po  sent  back  its  trumpet  note  of  doom. 

Thou  ceased.     No  more  was  heard  the  holy  singing, 

Virgil  was  still,  and  Allighieri's  tomb. 

Juvenilia. 


113 


XXVll 
GIOVAN  BATTISTA  NICCOLINI 

The  time  will  come  when  the  ancient  mother,  raising 
Her  eyes  upon  the  examples  of  the  past, 
Shall  see  our  land  its  lot  with  virtue  cast, 

And  virtuous  souls  virtue  as  friend  appraising. 

But  now,  from  where  the  Alpine  herds  are  grazing 
To  far  Sicilian  shore,  in  slumber  fast 
Like  jealous  nurse  she  lulls  them  to  the  last, 

Lest  they  should  wake  and  on  those  forms  be  gazing. 

What  worth  to  thee  our  feeble  note  of  praise, 

Only  the  people's  lullaby  to  mar  ? 
To  thee  but  shame,  to  us  but  harm  befalling ! 

O  happy  those  who  'mid  the  din  of  war, 
On  thee,  a  prophet  worthy  of  better  days, 

With  Dante  and  Vittorio  shall  be  calling! 

Juvenilia. 


8 


»'> 


XXVIll 


IN  SANTA  CROCE 


O  great  Ones  born  in  that  our  Nation's  hour 
To  which  the  world  did  long  look  back  admiring 
As  to  a  springtime  when  the  heavens'  inspiring 

Poured  equal  gifts  of  anger,  love,  and  power, 

For  slavery  has  Italia  sold  her  dower, 

And  feasts  with  those  against  her  weal  conspiring ; 

At  your  high  shrines  in  vain  were  my  requiring 
Of  what  may  soothe  the  griefs  that  on  me  lower. 

The  present  race  such  ancestry  belying 

Seeks  but  the  ease  of  death,  as  in  its  tomb. 

Here  lives,  and  only  here,  the  ancient  Nation! 
And  here  I  stay  shivering  amid  the  gloom, 

Breathing  upon  the  world  my  imprecation, 
Doomed  to  live  ever  by  my  scorn  undying. 

Juvenilia. 


114 


XXIX 

VOICE  OF  THE  PRIESTS 

O  school  of  vileness,  treachery  and  lying, 
"Asylum  of  the  oppressed,"  in  evil  days 

Sounding  to  heaven  the  cruel  oppressor's  praise, 
While  God  and  King  and  Fatherland  denying ! 

O  wicked  was  your  heartless  justifying, 
Your  benediction  on  the  torturer's  blaze, 
Your  curses  on  the  doomed  who  dared  to  raise 

A  voice  against  thy  tyranny  outcrying. 

Ready  the  Empire's  brutal  force  to  crave. 
Thou  smil'st  upon  its  prize  unjustly  won; 

God's  prophet  is  become  a  lying  knave. 
O  saddest  day  the  sun  e'er  shone  upon 

When  cowers  the  Cross,  the  standard  of  the  slave. 

And  Christ  is  made  the  tyrant's  champion ! 

Juvenilia. 


»»5 


XXX 
VOICE  OF  GOD 

Hark !    In  the  temple  the  voice  of  God  is  sounding. 
"O  people  of  one  speech  and  one  endeavour 
Yours  is  the  land  with  my  best  gifts  abounding 
Whereon  the  smile  of  heaven  is  resting  ever ! 

"Away  the  armed  hosts  your  gates  surrounding! 

The  barbarous  hordes  that  come  your  speech  to  sever, 
To  raze  the  fortunes  of  your  fathers'  founding, 
And  call  you  slaves!   That  will  I  pardon  never! 

"Rather  within  your  tombs  the  flame  be  stirred 
As  from  an  awful  flash  in  heaven  burning, 

Such  as  gave  forth  the  Maccabean's  word." 

Hail  Voice  divine!   be  ours  the  quick  discerning 

Of  what  thy  message  means :  in  thee  be  heard 

Savonarola's  spirit  to  us  returning! 

Juvenilia. 


ii6 


XXXI 
ON  MY  DAUGHTER'S  MARRIAGE 

O  born  when  over  my  poor  roof  did  pass 
hope  like  a  homeless,  wandering  nightingale, 
and  1,  disdainful  of  the  present  world, 
knocked  fretful  at  the  portals  of  the  morrow ; 


now  that  I  stand  as  at  my  journey's  end, 
and  see  around  my  threshold  flocking  come, 
in  turn,  the  jackdaws'  noisy  company, 
screaming  their  flattering  plaudits  at  my  door ; 

't  is  thou,  my  dove,  dost  steal  thyself  away, 
willing  a  new  nest  for  thyself  to  weave 
beyond  the  Apennines,  where  thou  may'st  feel 
the  native  sweet  air  of  the  Tuscan  hills. 

Go  then  with  love ;  go  then  with  joy :  O  go 
with  all  thy  pure  white  faith !     The  eye 
grows  dim  in  gazing  at  the  flying  sail. 
Meanwhile  my  Camena  is  still  and  thinks,— 

117 


,,g  Giosu^  Carducci 

thinks  of  the  days  when  thou,  my  little  one, 
went  gathering  flowers  beneath  the  acacia-trees, 
and  she  who  led  thee  gently  by  the  hand 
was  reading  visions  fanciful  in  heaven,— 

thinks  of  the  days  when  over  thy  soft  tresses 
were  breathed  in  the  wild  ecstasy  of  freedom 
my  strophes  aimed  against  the  oligarchs 
and  the  base  cringing  slaves  of  Italy. 

Meanwhile  didst  thou  grow  on,  a  thoughtful  virgin, 
and  she  our  country  with'^trepid  step 
began  to  climb  the  lofty  heights  of  art, 
to  plant  thereon  the  flag  of  liberty. 

Looks  back  and  thinks!— Across  the  path  of  years 
With  thee  shall  it  be  sweet  one  day  to  dream 
the  old  sweet  dreams  again,  while  gazing  fondly 
upon  the  smiling  faces  of  thy  sons? 

Or  shall  it  be  my  better  destiny 

to  fight  on  till  the  sacred  summons  comes  ? 

Then,  O  my  daughter,  let  no  Beatrice 

my  soul  upon  its  heavenward  flight  attend,— 

then,  on  that  way  where  Homer  of  the  Greeks 
and  Christian  Dante  long  ago  did  pass, 
there  be  thy  gentle  look  my  only  guide, 
thy  voice  familiar  all  my  company. 


XXXII 


AT  THE  TABLE  OF  A  FRIEND 


Not  since  when  on  me  a  child 
Heaven's  gracious  radiance  smiled 
Hast  thou,  O  Sun,  such  splendour  poured 
As  on  my  friend's  Livornian  board. 

Never,  O  God  of  Feasts,  was  sent 
A  solace  so  benevolent 
As  wisely  glowed  within  the  wines 
We  drank  beneath  the  Apennines. 

O  Sun,  O  Bromius,  grant  that  whole 
In  loving  heart  and  virtuous  soul 
We  to  the  quiet  shades  descend 
(Where  Horace  is)— 1  and  my  friend. 

Thy  fortune  smile  upon  the  young 

Like  flowers  around  our  banquet  flung ; 

Peace  to  the  mothers  give,  and  fame 

To  valiant  youth  and  love's  sweet  flame ! 

Odi  Barbare. 

119 


xxxm 


DANTE 


strong  forms  were  those  of  the  New  Life,  that  stood 

Around  thy  cradle, 
O  Master  of  the  song  that  looks  above  I 


A  brave  young  giantess. 
Unknown  before  to  Greek  or  Latin  shores, 
Daring  in  love  and  hate,  and  fair  withal, 
Came  Tuscan  Libertade,  and  the  child 
Already  with  bounteous  breast  did  comfort  thee. 

And  all  a-glowing  with  her  spheral  rays, 

Mild  and  austere  in  one. 
Came  Faith :  and  she,  across  a  shore 
Obscure  with  crowds  of  visions  and  of  shades, 
Opened  for  thee  the  Gate  of  the  Infinite. 

Sighing  and  pensive,  yet  with  locks  aglow 

With  rosy  splendour  from  another  air, 

Love  made  long  stay. 

And  such  the  gentle  things 

120 


Giosue  Carducci 

He  talked  to  thee  with  bashful  lips,  so  sweetly 
He  entered  all  the  chambers  of  thy  heart, 
That  no  one  ever  knew  to  love  like  thee. 


121 


But  soon  away  from  lonely  meditating, 

O  youthful  recluse. 
Wild  clamour  and  fierce  tumult  tore  thee,  and 
The  fury  of  brothers  seeking  brothers'  blood. 
Thou  heard'st  the  hissing  flames  of  civil  war 
On  neighbour's  walls ;  thou  heardest  women  shriek 
To  heaven  that  altars  and  the  marriage  bed, 
The  dear  hearth-stone  and  the  infant's  cradle, — 
All  that  made  fair  the  marital  abode. 
Were  swept  away  in  one  great  gulf  of  flame. 
Their  men  had  rushed  from  their  embrace  to  arms; 
The  youth  breathed  only  anger  and  destruction. 
Thou  sawest  the  raging  of  swords 
Seeking  the  breast-plunge ; 
Thou  heardest  the  dying  warrior 
Blaspheme  and  curse  : 
Before  thee,  streaming  with  gore. 
Gold  locks  and  grey  ; 
And  the  Furies  offering 
To  Liberty  the  execrated  host 
Of  human  victims; 
And  Death,  the  cruel  arbiter  of  fates, 
Crumbling  the  mighty  towers  and  opening 
The  long-barred  gates. 


133 


Giosuh  Carducci 

Amid  wild  scenes 

So  grew  thy  Italian  soul, 

And  prayed  that  the  long  civil  hate  might  end. 

Meanwhile  he  saw 

Of  love  such  pure  revealings  and  so  strange, 

The  which  depicted  in  the  shade 

Of  a  young  myrtle-tree, 

Each  one  who  saw  must  bow  the  head  in  reverence. 

But  o'er  this  gentle  dream 

There  came  the  voice  of  weeping, 

Bitterly  sounding  from  the  maternal  source. 

Alas  I  broken  by  the  whirlwind, 

Lies  the  fair  myrtle, 

And  with  wide-spread  wings 

The  dove  of  sweet  affection  is  flown  forth 

To  seek  a  purer  aura  for  its  flight. 

He,  driven  here  and  there 

In  the  thick  darkness  of  the  turbulent  age. 

Sought  refuge  with  the  famous  shades  of  old ; 

So  learned  to  hate  himself  and  present  things. 

And  in  the  twilight  came  he  forth  a  giant, 

Seeming  a  shade  himself— an  angry  shade 

Who  through  the  desert  went  from  tomb  to  tomb, 

Now  questioning  and  now  embracing  them  : 

Until  before  him  rose  across  the  ruin 

And  dust  of  these  barbaric  ages  gone. 


Giosue  Carducci  i23 

Like  a  cloudy  pillar,  the  ancient  Latin  valour. 

Then  all  that  such  a  ruin  tells  did  burst 

Upon  the  silent  air  in  one  great  cry. 

In  the  exalted  vision 

Arose  the  poet  divine  ;  and  now,  disdaining 

His  stricken  land  and  time  that  only  wasted 

In  petty  aimless  strife  the  ancient  strength, 

He,  in  the  seeing  of  his  heart's  desire. 

Saluted  thee,  O  modern  Italy,— 

One,  in  thy  valiant  arms,  thy  laws,  thy  speech. 

And  then,  to  truly  tell 

What  such  a  vision  meant,  he  sought  to  know 

The  life  that  rolls  through  all  the  sea  of  being. 

From  beneath  the  dust  of  buried  centuries 

He  made  things  good  and  ill  to  tell  their  tale 

Through  him  the  fatal  prophet :  till  his  voice 

Resounded  through  the  world,  and  made  the  ages 

Turn  and  behold  themselves.    Judge  and  lord, 

He  placed  them  where  they  could  themselves  behold. 

Admired  and  wept,  disdained  and  laughed  at  them; 

Then  shut  them  up  in  his  eternal  song. 

Well  pleased  that  he  had  power  to  do  this  much. 

And  meanwhile  this  poor  tangle 

Where  the  weeping  and  the  wailing  still  goes  on, 

This  endless  fraud  and  shadow 

Which  has  the  name  of  life  and  is  so  base,— 

All  this  didst  thou  despise !    Thy  sacred  muse 


134 


Gs'osu^  Carducci 


Explored  the  depths  of  all  the  universe. 

Following  the  good  gentile  Philosopher 

Who  placed  thee  in  the  midst  of  secret  things, 

Thou  didst  desire  to  see  as  angels  see 

There  where  there  is  no  intervening  veil ; 

And  thou  wouldst  love  as  they  do  love  in  heaven. 

Up  through  the  ways  of  love 

The  humble  creature 

Pushing  his  way  to  the  Creator's  presence, 

Wished  to  find  rest  in  that  eternal  Truth 

Which  taught  thee  the  great  love  and  the  great  thought. 

Here  Virgil  failed  thee, 

And  thou,  deserted, 

A  lonely  human  spirit  as  if  drowne^ 

Within  the  abyss  of  thy  immense  desire, 

Didst  vanish  overwhelmed  in  doubt, — 

When  as  on  wings 
Angelical  there  came  unto  thy  grief 
She  who  is  love  and  light  and  vision 
Between  the  understanding  and  the  True. 
No  mortal  tongue  like  mine  may  give  her  name, 
But  thou  who  lovedst  didst  call  her  Beatrice. 
And  so  from  sphere  to  sphere 
»T  was  naught  but  melody  that  thou  didst  hear, 
T  was  naught  but  one  great  light  that  thou  didst  see. 
And  every  single  sense  thou  hadst  was  love. 
And  verse  and  spirit  made  one  harmony 
Like  unto  her  who  there  revealed  herself. 


Giosue  Carducct 


\2^ 


Alas !   what  caredst  thou  then 

For  thy  poor  country  and  the  endless  strife 

That  rent  its  cities  like,  alas!  even  those 

That  make  forever  dark  the  vales  of  hell ! 

From  heaven  descending  thou  didst  thrice  bring  down 

The  Hymn  Supreme,  and  all  the  while  there  shone 

Upon  thy  brow  a  radiance  divine 

Like  his  who  spake  with  God  in  Sinai. 

Before  thee  shining 

In  all  the  splendour  of  the  holy  Kingdom 

Flashed  in  its  crimson  light  the  mortal  field 

Of  Montaperto,  and  along  the  wastes 

Deserted  and  malignant  came  the  sound, 

Dreary  and  dull,  of  dying  warriors'  sighs: 

To  which  far  off  responded 

With  a  great  cry  of  mingled  human  woe 

The  cursed  battle-field  of  Campaldino. 

And  thou,  Rea  Meloria, 

Didst  rise  from  the  Tuscan  sea 

To  tell  the  glory  of  this  horrid  slaughter, 

And  of  the  Thyrrenian  shores  made  desolate 

With  this  our  madness,  and  the  sea's  great  bosom 

All  stained  with  blood,  and  far  Liguria's  strand 

Filled  with  the  moan  of  lonely  Pisan  exiles 

And  children  born  for  fratricidal  war. 


JUVENIUA. 


\ 


XXXIV 
ON  THE  SIXTH  CENTENARY  OF  DANTE 

I  saw  him,  from  the  uncovered  tomb  uplifting 
His  mighty  form,  the  imperial  prophet  stand. 
Then  shook  the  Adrian  shore,  and  all  the  land 

Italia  trembled  as  at  an  earthquake  drifting. 

Like  morning  mist  from  purest  ether  sifting, 
It  marched  along  the  Apenninian  strand, 
Glancing  adown  the  vales  on  either  hand. 

Then  vanished  like  the  dawn  to  daylight  shifting. 

Meanwhile  in  earthly  hearts  a  fear  did  rise, 
The  awful  presence  of  a  god  discerning, 

To  which  no  mortal  dared  to  lift  the  eyes. 

But  where,  beyond  the  gates,  the  sun  is  burning, 

The  races  dead  of  warlike  men  and  wise 

With  joy  saluted  the  great  souFs  returning. 

Levia  Gravia. 


XXXV 

BEATRICE 

The  shining  face 

Smiled  straight  into  the  skies  ; 

A  rosy  glow  was  on  her  arched  neck; 

Her  radiant  brow, 

Lofty,  serene,  and  fair, 

And  her  glance  like  a  rose  new-blown, 

And  the  fresh  smile 

Of  pure  youth. 

Awakened  in  the  heart  new  ecstasies: 

But  awe-inspiring 

And  with  fear  entrancing 

Was  her  presence. 

Floating  on  the  wind 
In  the  morning  air 

Was  her  sky-blue  mantle,  her  white  veil. 

127 


ia6 


lag  Giosue  Carducci 

Like  Our  Lady  from  heaven 

She  passed  before  me. 

An  angel  in  seeming  and  yet  all  so  ardent. 

My  mind  stopped  thinking 

But  to  look  at  her, 

And  the  soul  was  at  rest  — but  for  sighing. 

Then  said  I :  O  how  or  when 

Did  earth  deserve 

That  such  a  mark  of  love  be  given  her? 

What  reckless  ancestors 

Gave  thee  to  the  world? 

What  age  ever  bore  so  fair  a  thing  as  thou? 

What  serener  star 

Produced  thy  form? 

What  love  divine  evolved  thee  from  its  light? 

Easily  the  ways  of  man 

Following  the  blessed  guidance 

Of  thee,  Beatrice,  were  all  made  new  I 


"Not  a  woman,  but  the  Idea 

Am  I,  which  heaven  did  offer 

For  man  to  study  when  seeking  things  on  high. 


Giosue  Carducci 


129 


''When  hearts,  not  wholly  cooled 
Of  their  potential  fires, 
Fought  hard  with  life  severe,  and  with  the  truth, 

*'  And  to  the  valiant  thinking 
And  courageous  hope 
Faith  and  true  love  lent  arms  of  constancy, — 

*♦  Then,  from  my  airy  seat  descending, 
Among  these  gallant  souls  I  came, 
Kindled  and  kept  alive  their  ardent  zeal ; 

"And,  faithful  to  my  champions. 
Clasped  in  their  mighty  embrace, 
I  made  them  worship  Death— yea,  and  Defeat, 

*'  While,  traced  by  dreamy  souls 
In  verse  and  colours, 
[  wandered  through  the  laurels  on  Arno's  banks. 


«<  In  vain  you  look  for  me 

'Mong  your  poor  household  gods  — 
No  Bice  Portinari  — I  am  the  Idea!" 


Juvenilia. 


XXXVI 

"  A  questi  di  prima  io  la  vidi.    Uscia" 

These  were  the  days  when  first  I  saw  her  growing 
Like  bud  to  flower  in  the  time  of  spring, 
Her  figure  such  a  sweet  and  lovely  thing 

As  if  one  heard  love's  richest  music  flowing. 

The  bashful  blushes  on  her  cheeks  were  showing 
What  native  grace  her  gentle  speech  could  bring  ; 
As  on  smooth  seas  the  stars  their  radiance  fling, 

So  in  her  laughing  eyes  the  soul  was  glowing. 

'T  was  such  1  saw  her.    Now  with  mad  desire 

As  in  a  world  of  stifling  air  alone 
I  wander,  weak  and  worn  with  my  inquiring, 

Till  strength  remains  only  her  name  to  moan 
As  with  each  breath  1  feel  my  life  expiring : 
O  Light  of  all  my  years,  where  art  thou  flown? 

JUVEHILIA. 


130 


XXXVIl 

"Non  son  quell'  io  che  gii  d'amiche  cene" 

I  am  not  he  who  amid  wine  cups  flowing 
Rouses  to  joy  the  festive  board  of  friends: 

Heavy  with  bitter  weariness  is  going 
The  time  that  to  my  mind  no  banquet  sends. 

Anger  alone  is  that  fierce  life  bestowing 
Over  whose  board  my  heart  all  ravenous  bends. 

O  fair  green  years  when  brightest  hopes  were  growing 
That  now  lie  withered  as  when  summer  ends ! 

Even  the  charm  of  sweet  imagination 
No  more  its  soul-beguiling  power  retains, 

But  in  its  place  stands  life,  mute,  dread,  appalling, 
And  over  all  a  shade  whose  intonation 
As  if  of  grief  that  it  alone  remains 
To  some  still  shore  afar  is  ever  calling. 

... 

Juvenilia. 


151 


^^^^^^MUUteMi^iH 


XXXVIIl 
THE  ANCIENT  TUSCAN  POETRY 

A  child  in  gardens,  fields,  and  city  squares 
I  grew  'mid  war's  alarms  and  love's  alluring; 

But  manhood's  school  of  mysteries  and  cares 
Enticed  me  to  the  temple's  dark  immuring. 

Where  now  the  lofty  dames,  with  glance  securing 
What  free-born  knight  or  brave  civilian  dares? 

Bright  April  days  the  roses  bloom  assuring? 
The  oak  that  through  the  castle  rampart  stares? 


Poor  and  alone,  again  to  that  dear  dwelling 
1  come  where  pious  love  did  once  deny 

That  1  should  heed  the  Enchantress'  sweet  impelling. 
Open !  O  Child :   though  be  the  times  awry, 

Thy  vision,  Beatrice,  wakes  my  heart's  rebelling,— 
Open!   The  Tuscan  poesy  am  I! 

Levia  Gravia. 


132 


XXXIX 

OLD   FIGURINES 

Like  as  an  infant,  beaten  by  its  mother 
or  but  half  conquered  in  a  wayward  quarrel, 
tired,  falls  asleep,  with  its  little  fists 
tight  clenched  and  with  tear-wet  eyelids,— 

So  does  my  passion,  O  fair  Lalage, 
sleep  in  my  bosom ;    nor  thinking,  nor  caring, 
whether  in  rosy  May-time  wander  playing 
the  other  happy  infants  in  the  sun. 

O  wake  't  not,  Lalage  !   or  thou  shalt  hear 

my  passion,  like  a  very  God  of  battles, 

putting  an  end  to  sports  so  innocent, 

to  flay  the  very  heavens  with  its  raging  I 

Odi  Barbare. 


133 


XL 


MADRIGAL 

Breaking  his  way  through  the  white  clouds  in  the  azure, 

The  sun  laughs  out  and  cries: 

"  O  Springtime,  come  !  " 

Across  the  greening  hills  with  placid  murmurs 
The  streams  sing  back  to  the  breeze : 
"O  Springtime,  come ! " 


**0  Springtime,  cornel"  to  his  heart  the  poet  is  saying, 
While  gazing,  O  pure  Lalage,  in  thine  eyes ! 


Odi  Barbare. 


134 


XLl 


SNOWED  UNDER 

Slowly  the  snow-flakes  fall  through  the  ashen  heavens :  no 

clamour 
nor  sound  whatever  comes  up  from  the  street. 

No  cry  of  the  vender  of  fruits,  no  rumbling  of  cart-wheels, 
no  ballad  of  love  wailing  forth  from  the  lips  of  youth. 

Hoarse  from  the  towers  of  the  square  the  hours  groan  out, — 
Sighs  that  come  from  a  world  far  remote  from  our  daylight. 

Birds,  that  homeless  wander,  peck  at  the  darkened  window : 
Souls  of  the  lost  ones  returning !    they  watch  me  and  call 
me  to  them. 

Shortly,  O  dear  Ones,  shortly— Heart !  tame  thy  restless  re- 
belling — 
down  to  your  silence,  down  to  your  peaceful  shades  will  I 

come  I 

Odi  Barbare. 


»35 


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